Summarized by AI Model:facebook/bart-large-cnn
A rare type of bee reportedly caused problems for Meta's plans for an AI data centre. Meta intended to construct a facility that would run on nuclear power, but the bees made things more difficult. To enhance their AI goals, other tech firms are investing billions of dollars in data centres.According to FT, a rare type of bee reportedly caused problems for Meta’s plans for an AI data centre. Meta intended to construct a facility that would run on nuclear power, but the bees made things more difficult. To enhance their AI goals, other tech firms are investing billions of dollars in data centres.
The Financial Times said on Monday that the company’s ambitions for an AI data centre were hampered by a rare type of the insect. According to the FT, Meta has been negotiating for a US data centre to support the company’s AI efforts with a nuclear power plant operator. However, according to the FT, which cited two people acquainted with the discussion, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in an all-hands meeting that the plans were partially upset by the finding of the bee species at a location adjacent to the planned plant.
The FT said that regulatory issues also played a role. Neither the location of the planned site nor the name of the power plant operator were mentioned in the publication. In its most recent financial report, Meta stated that it anticipates “a significant acceleration in infrastructure expense growth next year” and “significant capital expenditures growth in 2025,” both of which are mostly attributable to its AI efforts.
For its AI aspirations, Meta is hardly the only tech behemoth investing much in infrastructure. In order to power their AI, competitors Microsoft, Amazon, and Google also spend billions on data centres. Google became the first digital firm to broker a contract for new nuclear power plants last month when it announced a partnership to purchase nuclear energy from small modular reactors to be built by Kairos Power. According to a March Bloomberg story, Amazon intends to invest roughly $150 billion in data centres by 2040. Marc Wulfraat, head of the consulting firm MWPVL, recently told BI that the corporation might roll out up to 240 additional data centres by 2040, citing the enormous square footage at its disposal through the leasing of space in buildings shared with other firms.
Microsoft and energy giant Constellation inked a 20-year power purchase agreement in September that will restore some of Three Mile Island, the scene of the worst nuclear energy catastrophe in US history, to the grid. The proliferation of data centres to support AI has significant environmental costs in addition to financial ones. According to a McKinsey estimate, data centres in the US are predicted to increase their power consumption from 17 gigawatts in 2022 to 35 gigawatts by 2040.
