These “makeshift” structures are housing hardware that costs millions of dollars in total.
“Putting AI servers inside tents, officially called “rapid deployment structures,” is one of the more unique approaches to the AI build-out, Thomas said. They’re certainly not as sturdy as physical buildings made from steel and concrete, with one commenter comparing it to the “classic $10k racing bike with a $9 lock” situation.”
So they’re using gasoline to run jet engines that rotate turbines that generate electricity? wtf
Article about this: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers-turn-to-ex-airliner-engines-as-ai-power-crunch-bites
Not unusual in the slightest. They’re often used as peaking plants that fire up when energy prices are driven high enough by demand. Can be setup to run on all sorts of different fuels.
This isn’t for power peaks, it’s for a temporary data center. There is nothing usual about it.
If these are supposed to be used as backup generators then gas turbines are a good fit in technical sense. Can start quickly, don’t need a lot of space or cooling, can work on partial load; lead times are somehow short, and you can just pack it all in containers and set up anywhere which seems to be important. The catch is that efficiency is probably just below 40% instead of 60% and slightly above for regular CCGT plant, thst is you need to burn extra 50%-ish gas (methane is cheapest fuel and can just be piped). about anything that burns and can be pumped through a nozzle can be used
Then there’s matter of smog. You’re supposed to put giant catalytic converter (sorta) on this thing and normal powerplants do just that. Apparently techbro oligarchs decided it’s not disruptive enough this way
but dw this won’t last, talking about bubble broke to the mainstream now