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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

It's been a while, but I don't recall any of the dotcom startups making deals with nuclear energy companies to buy out entire nuclear power stations: https://www.npr.org/2024/09/20/nx-s1-5120581/three-mile-isla...

And that's just an example, there are many power-related deals of similar magnitude.

The companies building out capacity certainly believe that AI is going to use as much power as we are told. We are told this not on the basis of hypothetical speculation, but on the basis of billions of real dollars being spent on real power capacity for real data centers by real people who'd really rather keep the money in question. Previous hypotheses not backed by billions of dollars are not comparable predictions.

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> The companies building out capacity certainly believe that AI is going to use as much power as we are told.

The same could be said of dark fiber laid during the dot com boom, or unused railroads, etc. Spending during a boom is not indicative of properly recognized future demand of resources.

It's not future demand, it's current demand. Microsoft has already said they're power blocked rather than chip blocked.

Please note how I say current demand, and don't over project as to what my opinion about future demand is. I think there's a small, but reasonable chance that demand will sink for some reason or another in the next few years, and I think there's a pretty decent chance that in the next five years someone will come up with some way to make these things an order of magnitude or more more efficient, which would crash their electricity demands. But it's not a hypothetical "we need power in two years", or at least, not just that... it's we need more power now.

There's a big difference between "I may hypothetically need some more capacity later, I'd better go buy it now" and "I concretely need more capacity right now".

> It's not future demand, it's current demand. Microsoft has already said they're power blocked rather than chip blocked.

This is not me doubting you, but your comment will carry considerably more weight if you provide a reference to Microsoft's statement.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nvidia-stock...

Yes, big bets tell us something but they are not a crystal ball. Some of the same companies hired lots of people post-pandemic and then reversed. People who control enormous amounts of money can make risky bets that turn out to be wrong.

There's a theory BigTech hired to hoard talent to inhibit competitiveness of rival companies.

That is not a theory and not limited to big tech either.

What are the other examples

They might not be buying them outright but that doesn’t sound like a realistic first or initial set of steps.

There are new commitments.

Microsoft: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-goes-nuclear-bigges...

Google: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/google-gen4-nuclea...

Amazon: https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/16/amazon-jumps-on-nuclear-po...

OpenAI/Sam Altman: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/oklo-to-generate-1...

More: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116339/ai-nucle...

1. Microsoft is not a "dotcom startup". We live in a different, much more consolidated tech world of companies that either balloon to become behemoths or are bought by existing behemoths.

2. Power and data centers can be used for other things than AI.

3. They might turn out to be wrong and not need the deal/power. For companies sitting on a shitload of cash that would be an inconvenience whereas not investing and then later having to beg for electricity amounts to losing the race.

"Exposing The Dark Side of America's AI Data Center Explosion" - https://youtu.be/t-8TDOFqkQA

100% this.

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