Microsoft’s New AI Energy Push
Microsoft has many options for finding or creating new electricity for its AI server farms. Most of its competitors have elected to build or partner with financial firms to build new energy facilities. The majority will use solar, wind, or nuclear energy.
The shortage of electricity for AI server farms has become almost an emergency. Recent earnings releases from America’s largest tech companies show that tens of billions of dollars have been invested and will be invested in AI.
Wood Buildings
Microsoft has started to adopt its solution. According to Axios, “Microsoft said two Northern Virginia data centers are being built with cross-laminated timber (CLT), a lightweight prefabricated wood material that’s grown in popularity in Europe.”
It is hard to see how timber would offer massive greenhouse reductions, but the details of the plans are scant enough to make that impossible to determine.
If it works, perhaps server farms will all be built with wood.
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