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by eternauta3k 906 days ago
Really? I imagine datacenters are not reaching powers anywhere near those of e.g. arc furnaces.
1 comments

Arc furnace: peak of about 250 MW to melt the steel [1]

Datacenter: seems to cap out at around 850 MW [2]

Same ballpark I guess? Probably both are limited by inexpensive power availability + other connectivity factors (road/rail, fiber).

[1]: “Therefore, a 300-tonne, 300 MVA EAF will require approximately 132 MWh of energy to melt the steel, and a "power-on time" (the time that steel is being melted with an arc) of approximately 37 minutes.” via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace

[2]: https://www.racksolutions.com/news/blog/how-many-servers-doe...

I knew they were putting ridiculous power into these buildings but that’s absurd.

How many backup generators does that need??