[kulahan]

That's pretty interesting. Is it just because the power channels are the most fundamental aspect of the building? I'm sorta surprised you can't rip out old cables and drop in new ones, or something to that effect, but I also know NOTHING about electricity.

[libraryofbabel]

Not an expert, but it’s probably related to cooling. Every joule of that electricity that goes in must also leave the datacenter as heat. And the whole design of a datacenter is centered around cooling requirements.

[vrighter]

Exactly. To add to that, I'd like to point out that when this person says every joule, he is not exaggerating (only a teeny tiny bit). The actual computation itself barely uses any energy at all.