We need so many batteries.
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Ryan McEntush
@rmcentush
a16z
a16zinvesting @a16z
projects & writing rmcentush.com
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2.8KFollowing
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@rmcentush reposted
@rmcentush reposted
Shout out my guy @rmcentush on the great piece around why it's not as simple as ordering a bunch of equipment and 'plugging it in' for data centers - grid or BTM. This is helpful for laymen and experts, both! Visuals are great.
Lucky to see early version of the piece and Ryan spent a ton of time distilling A LOT of info into a clean, punchy piece. Worth your time.
Lucky to see early version of the piece and Ryan spent a ton of time distilling A LOT of info into a clean, punchy piece. Worth your time.
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selected takes:
- texas paused data center development for generally good reasons
- some developers are behaving badly/not transparently; it's also a nightmare for grid operators
- texas has a some ideas on how to accelerate interconnection
- behind the meter is real and not going away, but every campus will eventually connect to the grid
- lots of opportunity for OEMs, but worth being careful not to get caught in boom/bust cycle
- flexibility help make existing infra more efficient, but we still need more wires/gen. near term, i'm bullish gas, solar, and batteries
- it would be great to have AI companies pay for grid upgrades that we need anyway. generational opportunity to prepare for an abundant future without spreading costs across ratepayers or playing catch up later
- everything about this is complicated and will take a broad consensus to truly unlock rapid deployment
- texas paused data center development for generally good reasons
- some developers are behaving badly/not transparently; it's also a nightmare for grid operators
- texas has a some ideas on how to accelerate interconnection
- behind the meter is real and not going away, but every campus will eventually connect to the grid
- lots of opportunity for OEMs, but worth being careful not to get caught in boom/bust cycle
- flexibility help make existing infra more efficient, but we still need more wires/gen. near term, i'm bullish gas, solar, and batteries
- it would be great to have AI companies pay for grid upgrades that we need anyway. generational opportunity to prepare for an abundant future without spreading costs across ratepayers or playing catch up later
- everything about this is complicated and will take a broad consensus to truly unlock rapid deployment
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@rmcentush reposted
Excellent and thoughtful piece here.
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@rmcentush reposted
Texas just froze new data center permits:
- Its queue went from 63 GW to 474 GW in 18 months, more than 5x record peak demand
- Only 9.5 GW is approved and about 4.3 GW is actually running
- The rest is duplicates, speculation, and developers who have never plugged in a GPU
a16z's @rmcentush on why the grid can't build for that many maybes: a16z.news/p/why-texas-is…
- Its queue went from 63 GW to 474 GW in 18 months, more than 5x record peak demand
- Only 9.5 GW is approved and about 4.3 GW is actually running
- The rest is duplicates, speculation, and developers who have never plugged in a GPU
a16z's @rmcentush on why the grid can't build for that many maybes: a16z.news/p/why-texas-is…
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@rmcentush reposted
Great read from @rmcentush
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@rmcentush reposted
"At the end of 2024, Texas' grid operator had 63 GW of large new customers in its queue. By this June, that figure reached 474 GW, more than five times record peak demand."
"Then Texas hit pause."
"Developers routinely spam requests across several sites, and many are speculative builds with no customer yet."
"Planners can't tell which are real, and they don't want ratepayers covering upgrades built for projects that never show up."
"Fully connecting a large data center can take 5 to 10 years... Idle GPUs cost far more than the electricity to run them, so speed matters most... That's why developers are planning to bring their own power on site."
"Full reliability for these power islands is very, very hard, but some labs and hyperscalers have shown that, forced to choose between reliability and speed, they'll pick speed."
"Every site I'm aware of intends to connect to the grid as soon as it can, chiefly because on-site power almost always costs more."
"AI companies have pledged to pay their way, and most would rather connect to the grid than avoid it. It seems ideal for everyone that we let them do so instead of driving that spending into private islands."
"Texas created the energy fast lane first; now it has the opportunity to show us a better one, and I expect it will. Power is where America finds out whether it can still build."
a16z's @rmcentush on why Texas is making data centers wait: a16z.news/p/why-texas-is…
"Then Texas hit pause."
"Developers routinely spam requests across several sites, and many are speculative builds with no customer yet."
"Planners can't tell which are real, and they don't want ratepayers covering upgrades built for projects that never show up."
"Fully connecting a large data center can take 5 to 10 years... Idle GPUs cost far more than the electricity to run them, so speed matters most... That's why developers are planning to bring their own power on site."
"Full reliability for these power islands is very, very hard, but some labs and hyperscalers have shown that, forced to choose between reliability and speed, they'll pick speed."
"Every site I'm aware of intends to connect to the grid as soon as it can, chiefly because on-site power almost always costs more."
"AI companies have pledged to pay their way, and most would rather connect to the grid than avoid it. It seems ideal for everyone that we let them do so instead of driving that spending into private islands."
"Texas created the energy fast lane first; now it has the opportunity to show us a better one, and I expect it will. Power is where America finds out whether it can still build."
a16z's @rmcentush on why Texas is making data centers wait: a16z.news/p/why-texas-is…
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as I’ve been buying stuff for my new place, I’ve struggled to define what I actually like. “local” or “craft” stuff on etsy gets close, but it’s often just cover for what is actually pretty bad quality.
took a wine class recently and remembered the word “terroir.” sounds pretentious, but captures an idea pretty well: things that are genuinely shaped by where and who they come from.
not local for the sake of it, more human than mere “nonfungibility”, etc. feels important in coming age of radical abundance.
took a wine class recently and remembered the word “terroir.” sounds pretentious, but captures an idea pretty well: things that are genuinely shaped by where and who they come from.
not local for the sake of it, more human than mere “nonfungibility”, etc. feels important in coming age of radical abundance.
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hans zimmer did MW2? damn
videogame music daily br@music_videogame · Sep 29Extraction Point - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
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what modders are gonna do to GTA 6 will be biblical
tvllerr
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the .ai domain fees earn ~$100m for Anguilla annually, or around 50% of total government revenue
unironically, devastating
unironically, devastating
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this is the kinda thing you practice for when you're scribbling in your notebook in 8th grade history class. the big leagues! cmon greg
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absolutely devastating to the country of anguilla
Fox News@FoxNews · Sep 29BREAKING: President Trump says that he and tech leaders have officially changed the name of AI to 'Super Intelligence.'
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a lot happened last week
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this week according to monitor-the-situation.com
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man in weathered baseball hat scrolls third-tier sports gambling app for the entire flight. UX is bad I can’t tell if he’s losing. orders 1, 2, 3 cans of red wine. he’s probably losing. groupchats named things like “boys of summer” and “the gathering”. half the messages are sport gifs. home screen cluttered; uses search to find facebook. he loves arizona. i can hear his music through my airpods. he doesn’t know what METR is
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life of @tszzl
jasmine sun@jasminewsun · Sep 9I hear roughly 3 reasons people keep working at AI labs despite believing in ~10% extinction risk:
1) Techno-determinism: Someone will build ASI no matter what, and I can do it better & more safely than China/OpenAI/etc
2) Consequentialism: ASI might kill us, but it also might produce utopia/immortality/superabundance, so it's a +EV bet
3) Self-interest: I am personally having fun & getting rich working on cool tech with friends. I don't think about the macro stuff.
Notably, none of this is "I'm hyping up the risk for marketing reasons." People believe what they say, while being capable of a lot of internal dissonance / compartmentalization / self-justification.
(Personally, I think the public is better served by AI researchers talking about & creating consensus for the specific safety solutions — regulatory or otherwise — they want vs. vagueposting about extinction.)
Open quoted post →1) Techno-determinism: Someone will build ASI no matter what, and I can do it better & more safely than China/OpenAI/etc
2) Consequentialism: ASI might kill us, but it also might produce utopia/immortality/superabundance, so it's a +EV bet
3) Self-interest: I am personally having fun & getting rich working on cool tech with friends. I don't think about the macro stuff.
Notably, none of this is "I'm hyping up the risk for marketing reasons." People believe what they say, while being capable of a lot of internal dissonance / compartmentalization / self-justification.
(Personally, I think the public is better served by AI researchers talking about & creating consensus for the specific safety solutions — regulatory or otherwise — they want vs. vagueposting about extinction.)
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There has never been a better time to work on something that matters.
So @pronounced_kyle and I hand-curated a list of 750+ companies — and 40,000+ jobs — to help your find your next role.
Check out the updated buildlist.xyz 👇
So @pronounced_kyle and I hand-curated a list of 750+ companies — and 40,000+ jobs — to help your find your next role.
Check out the updated buildlist.xyz 👇
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