From nuclear to quantum computing, how Big Tech intends to power AI’s insatiable thirst for energy
Industrial chiller at Yotta Data Services Pvt. data center, in Navi Mumbai, India, on Thursday, Mar. 14, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A huge upswing in the number of data centers worldwide shows no signs of slowing down, prompting Big Tech to consider how best to power the artificial intelligence revolution.
Some of the options on the table include a pivot to nuclear, liquid cooling for data centers and quantum computing.
Critics, however, have said that as the pace of efficiency gains in electricity use slows, tech giants should recognize the cost of the generative AI boom across the whole supply chain — and let go of the “move fast and break things” narrative.
“The actual environmental cost is quite hidden at the moment. It is just subsidized by the fact that tech companies need to get a product and a buy-in,” Somya Joshi, head of division: global agendas, climate and systems at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), told CNBC via video call.
A wave of data center investment is expected to accelerate even further in the coming years, according to the International Energy Agency, primarily driven by growing digitalization and the uptake of generative AI.
It is this prospect that has stoked concerns about an electricity demand surge — as well as AI’s often-overlooked but critically important environmental impact.
Data centers, which consume an ever-increasing amount of energy, represent a key piece of infrastructure behind modern-day cloud computing and AI applications.
Giampiero Frisio, president of electrification at Swiss multinational ABB, said the engineering group’s data center business has enjoyed remarkable growth in recent years — with the segment on track to grow by more than 24% in 2024.
Frisio said ABB has been well placed in the AI demand boom to supply mid-sized and big-name industry players with all the components needed to run a data center.
“I think the best way to act now is to increase the energy efficiency. That’s the best way because the technology is there, for example the medium voltage HiPerGuard UPS. You can do it, and you can do it tomorrow morning,” Frisio told CNBC via video call.
The HiPerGuard UPS refers to ABB’s industry-first medium voltage uninterruptable power supply, which it says can provide continuous power to large facilities.
A server room at a data center in India.
Dhiraj Singh | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“The second one is to move on the liquid cooling, there is no doubt. Again, this is in the optic of better energy efficiency. Why? Because a single rack, you know the black boxes that look like a wardrobe with all the servers inside, the power density of those is going to be four to six times than before,” Frisio said.
“After that, we are talking about five to 10 years from now, it is the nuclear modular system,” he added.
Big Tech is going nuclear
U.S. tech behemoths Microsoft, Google and Amazon have all secured nuclear energy deals worth billions of dollars in recent months as they seek to bring additional energy capacity online to train and run the massive generative AI models behind today’s applications.
The upsurge of generative AI demand has coincided with a push to find more efficient cooling solutions in data centers, particularly liquid cooling — a process in which water is used to lower the temperatures of servers and other electronic equipment.
I think in the summer of every great technology we discover there is a winter — but don’t pay attention to it until winter arrives.
Raj Hazra
CEO of Quantinuum
French power-equipment maker Schneider Electric recently completed an $850 million deal to take a controlling stake in Motivair Corp, a U.S.-based company that specializes in liquid cooling for high-performance computing.
Schneider Electric CEO Peter Herweck told CNBC last month that the all-cash deal, which is designed to bolster its offering to data centers, was “rich, but not overly expensive” and “fits great” with the firm’s strategy.
Alongside nuclear energy and liquid cooling technology, some tech players have suggested developments within AI could help to decarbonize data centers.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, for example, said last month that since “we’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway”, investing in AI could be pivotal to solving some of our biggest environmental challenges.
SEI’s Joshi flatly rejected this point of view.
“These arguments are not new, they are very much in line with the sort of ‘silver bullet’, ‘tech will save us’ rhetoric,” Joshi said.
“There is something inherently at odds with saying we operate within certain finite planetary boundaries and yet by exceeding them and continuing with the same extractive narratives, we are somehow going to solve the problem that we’re in now,” she added.
Quantum computing
“I think in the summer of every great technology we discover there is a winter — but don’t pay attention to it until winter arrives,” Raj Hazra, CEO of Quantinuum, the world’s largest integrated quantum computing company, told CNBC via video call.
“That is my way of describing what is happening with generative AI, the infrastructure needed to support it [and] the massive data centers that have to be built.”
Hazra said optimism over the generative AI boom is already straining the cost of running the technology.
Aerial view of a data center owned by the US multinational and technology company Google in Santiago on October 9, 2024. The drought that is affecting part of South America, coupled with public pressure, is forcing technology giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to reformulate their data center projects in the region in favor of low-water consumption ones.
Rodrigo Arangua | Afp | Getty Images
“As wonderful as AI is, there are two challenges to it. One is, is it sustainable from a resource standpoint? The other is, is it responsible?” Hazra said. “The reason I bring up this context is because quantum is critical to both of them.”
Quantum computing refers to an area of computer science that uses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve extremely complex problems.
Hazra said a “who’s who” of businesses and strategic investors have recently expressed an interest in Quantinuum, with the company raising around $300 million in its latest equity funding round. Honeywell, which is the firm’s majority shareholder, said the fundraise put Quantinuum’s valuation at $5 billion.
“One of the things that has become quite apparent is it’s no longer OK to say I have a solution to a problem; you have to say I have a sustainable solution to a problem,” Hazra said.
The CEO said one of quantum’s biggest contributions to society can be to make AI both sustainable and responsible.
“I predict that in the next three to five years, you will see people say, what is my compute infrastructure for running my business? It will be a combination of high-performance computing, AI and quantum,” he added.
Tesla has quietly removed the Cybertruck’s range extender from the options in its online configurator.
Does Tesla still plan to bring the product to market?
When Tesla unveiled the production version of the Cybertruck in late 2023, there were two main disappointments: the price and the range.
The tri-motor version, which was the most popular in reservation tallies, was supposed to have over 500 miles of range and start at $70,000.
Tesla now sells the tri-motor Cybertruck for $100,000 and only has a range of 320 miles.
As for the dual-motor Cybertruck, it was supposed to cost $50,000 and have over 300 miles of range. The reality is that it starts at $80,000, and it has 325 miles of range.
However, Tesla had devised a solution to bring the range closer to what it originally announced: a separate battery pack that sits in the truck’s bed. Tesla called it a “range extender.” It costs $16,000 and takes up a third of the Cybertruck’s bed.
Even though the Cybertruck has been in production for a year and a half at this point, the range extender has yet to launch.
Initially, Tesla said that it would come “early 2025”, but we reported that it was pushed to “mid-2025” late last year.
At the time, Tesla also reduced the range that the removable battery pack adds to the Cybertruck to “445+ miles” rather than “470+ miles” for the dual motor – a ~25-mile reduction in range.
Now, Tesla has removed the option from its online Cybertruck configurator. It used to take reservations for the range extender with a “$2,000 non-refundable deposit”, as seen on the image above, but now it’s not in the configurator at all at the time of writing.
It’s unclear if Tesla is not planning to launch the product anymore or if it is just pausing reservations.
In its specs page, Tesla still lists the achievable range of both versions of the Cybertruck with and without the range extender battery:
Electrek’s Take
I’m curious. Is it dead, or does Tesla just want to stop taking reservations for it?
At first, I was curious about the product even though I didn’t think it would make up for Tesla’s significant miss on Cybertruck specs.
However, after it was confirmed that it takes up 30% of your bed and that it needs to be installed and removed by Tesla at a service center, I think it’s pretty much dead on arrival at $16,000.
It’s going to be a product limited to only a few people at best. And now that’s if it makes it to market.
With the option being removed from the configurator, there’s no production timeline available. Again, the last one was “mid-2025”, which is soon.
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Environment
EcoFlow members can save up to 65% on power stations while supporting disaster relief during the 2025 Member’s Festival
Portable power station specialist EcoFlow is kicking off its third annual Member’s Festival this month and is offering a unique new rewards program to those who become EcoFlow members. The 2025 EcoFlow Member’s Festival will offer savings of up to 65% for its participating customers, and a portion of those funds will be allocated toward rescue power solutions for communities around the globe through the company’s “Power for All” fund.
EcoFlow remains one of the industry leaders in portable power solutions and continues to trek forward in its vision to power a new tech-driven, eco-conscious future. Per its website:
Our mission from day one is to provide smart and eco-friendly energy solutions for individuals, families, and society at large. We are, were, and will continue to be a reliable and trusted energy companion for users around the world.
To achieve such goals, EcoFlow has continued to expand its portfolio of sustainable energy solutions to its community members, including portable power stations, solar generators, and mountable solar panels. While EcoFlow is doing plenty to support its growing customer base, it has expanded its reach by giving back to disaster-affected communities by helping bolster global disaster response efforts the best way it knows how– with portable power solutions.
EcoFlow and its members look to provide “Power for All”
Since 2023, EcoFlow has collaborated with organizations worldwide as part of its “Power for All” mission. This initiative aims to ensure access to reliable and timely power to disaster-affected communities across the globe, including rescue agencies, affected hospitals, and shelters, to support rescue and recovery efforts.
This fund most recently provided aid for communities affected by the recent Los Angeles wildfires, assistance to the Special Forces Charitable Trust (SFCT) in North Carolina following severe hurricanes, and support for non-profits engaged in hurricane preparedness in Florida and the Gulf Coast. Per Jodi Burns, CEO of the Special Forces Charitable Trust:
In the wake of devastating storms in Western North Carolina, reliable power was a critical need for the families we serve. Thanks to EcoFlow’s generous donation of generators, we were able to provide immediate relief, ensuring these families and their communities had access to power when they needed it most. We are so impressed with EcoFlow’s commitment to disaster response through their ‘Power for All’ program. It has made a tangible impact, and we are deeply grateful for their support and partnership in helping these families recover and rebuild.
In 2024, the US experienced 27 weather and climate events, each causing losses exceeding $1 billion, marking the second-highest annual total on record, according to National Centers for Environmental Information. The increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters underscore the critical need for reliable and timely power solutions during emergencies, much like EcoFlow and its members are helping provide through the “Power For All” initiative.
To support new and existing EcoFlow members, the company is celebrating its third annual Member’s Festival throughout April to offer a do-not-miss discount on its products and donate a portion of all sales to the “Power for All” fund to provide rescue power to those in need in the future. Learn how it all works below.
Save big and give back during the 2025 Member’s Festival
As of April 1st, you can now sign up to become an EcoFlow member to participate in the company’s exclusive 2025 Member Festival.
As a member, you can earn “EcoFlow Power Points” by completing tasks like registration, referrals, and product purchases and tracking your individual efforts toward disaster preparedness and recovery.
Beginning April 4, EcoFlow members will also be able to take advantage of exclusive discounts of up to 65% off select portable power stations, including the DELTA Pro Ultra, DELTA Pro 3, DELTA 2 Max, DELTA 3 Plus, RIVER 3 Plus, and more. However, these sale prices only last through April 25, so you’ll want to move quickly!
Click here to learn more about EcoFlow’s “Power for All” campaign. To register for EcoFlow’s 2025 Member Festival in the US, visit the EcoFlow website. To register as a member in Canada, visit here.
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Tesla is losing another top talent: its long-time head of software, David Lau, has reportedly told co-workers that he is exiting the automaker.
Tesla changed how the entire auto industry looks at software.
Before Tesla, it was an afterthought; user interfaces were rudimentary, and you had to go to a dealership to get a software update on your systems.
When Tesla launched the Model S in 2012, it all changed. Your car would get better through software updates like your phone, the large center display was responsive with a UI that actually made sense and was closer to an iPad experience than a car.
Tesla also integrated its software into its retail experience, service, and manufacturing.
David Lau deserves a lot of the credit for that.
He joined Tesla in 2012 as a senior manager of firmware engineering and quickly rose through the ranks. By 2014, he was promoted to director of firmware engineering and system integration, and in 2017, he became Vice President of software.
Lau listed the responsibilities of his team on his LinkedIn:
- Vehicle Software:
- Firmware for the powertrain, traction/stability control, HV electronics, battery management, and body control systems
- UI software and underlying Embedded Linux platforms
- Navigation and routing
- iOS and Android Mobile apps
- Distributed Systems:
- Server-side software and infrastructure that provides telemetry, diagnostics, over-the-air updates, and configuration/lifecycle management
- Data engineering and analytics platforms that power technical and business insights for an increasingly diverse set of customers across the company
- Diagnostic tools and fleet management, Manufacturing and Automation:
- Automation controls (PLC, robot)
- Server-side manufacturing execution systems that power all of Tesla’s production operations
- Product Security and Red Team for software, services, and systems across Tesla
Bloomberg reported today that Lau told his team he is leaving Tesla. The report didn’t include reasons for his stepping down.
Electrek’s Take
Twelve years at any company is a great run. At Tesla, it’s heroic. Congrats, David, on a great run. You undoubtedly had a significant impact on Tesla and software advancements in the broader auto industry.
He is another significant loss for Tesla, which has been losing a lot of top talent following a big wave of layoffs around this time last year.
I wonder who will take over. Michael Rizkalla, senior director of software engineering and vehicle firmware, is one of the most senior software engineers after Lau. He has been at Tesla for 7 years, and Tesla likes to promote within rather than hire outsiders.
There are also a lot of senior software execs working on AI at Tesla. Musk has been favoring them lately and he could fold Lau’s responsibilities under them.
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