Topics / Compute & Power
Compute & Power
The binding constraint on AI is quietly shifting from silicon to electricity. China generates more than twice the power of the United States and is adding new capacity many times faster, and it is increasingly building that capacity next to the data centers that will drink it. Deployment runs on power, and this is the input China produces better than anyone.
Best issues on this topic
- The Grid
The US pulled data centers off its grid to keep home AC running through a heat wave. The same week, China wired a desert of solar straight into a server hall. The scarce input is shifting from chips to power.
- The No-GPU Machine
A Chinese system topped the global TOP500 at 2.198 exaflops on 47,000 domestic CPUs and zero GPUs. On the AI-relevant benchmark, it came fourth. The asterisk is the whole export-control story.
- 60,000 Chips, Zero From Nvidia
China’s national computing hub in Zhengzhou runs 60,000 accelerators made by Sugon, a firm tied to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with zero chips from Nvidia, AMD or any Western supplier.
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