Somebody, please explain the push for mega-AI?
I am not denying the many potential uses for so-called 'AI'. Yet, it's unclear why there need to be large power-hungry data centres dotted across nations.
Creating new AI models appears to necessitate access to considerable computational power, but nothing on a scale more than many institutions already possess. Also, 'refined' or cut-down variants of newly made, and thoroughly tested, models should percolate downwards among government, business, educational & research institutions, and into private residences, there to be hosted on 'consumer level' equipment. A factory using one or more AIs to handle stock control, assembly lines, and whatever, might experience greater reliability and security by keeping the AIs on its premises; it could/should have secure backups held on premises it owns (one room might suffice) on another site. Additionally, AIs not intended for direct contact with folk offsite ought to have no connection to the public Internet.
Another example is hospitals using AIs as diagnostic aids. Instead of 'all singing, all dancing', and all too fallible, ersatz doctors and technicians, departments should call upon specific models, tailored for particular needs, and hosted on local computers of no greater specification than those required by avid 'gamers'. For instance, 'Radiology and Imaging' departments could host mammographic screening aids to spotting putative lesions, and pathology departments could have AI software tuned to histological examinations.
Similarly, onsite hosted AIs dedicated to literature curation, teaching aids, and administrative tasks could be housed in schools and universities. AIs deployed in these institutions may have demands placed upon them, necessitating 'higher-end equipment' than found in homes, but nothing hugely drawing on electricity.
So, what is the intent of Microsoft and other players in AI development when seeking to build mega-computer-farms? Presumably, it is to offer, via the Internet, services to government, industry, commerce, education, and private users.
It's well understood that the planned computer centres would pose problems for current electrical supply grids. The UK's Mr Starmer has committed (at least until he is ejected from office) to a costly backbone for AI megacentres. Doubtless, unimaginative political figures in other nations think along similar lines.
Computer power for running AI models devolved to work-sites and to homes may be only marginally, at worst, above that at present required. Bear in mind, that small, task-specific, AIs may substitute for some PCs already used for similar purposes. Should overall use in this manner exceed the electrical requirements of proposed mega-centres, demands on power grids would be geographically balanced.
Devolve your 'thinking power' to Microsoft and to similar? Let an horrendously ill-advised demand on electrical power be approved?