正文 · AI 翻译
IT Home reported on November 3 that OpenAI announced on Monday local time that it would pilot a “Grid Protector Program” at a newly built data center in Effingham County, Georgia. The company pledged that, during extreme weather or emergencies, it could free up as much as 1,000 megawatts of power, roughly enough to run air conditioning for 700,000 households.
IT Home noted that the announcement comes as opposition to data centers continues to spread across the United States. Many large projects have already entered planning and construction, while local residents often have little or no opportunity to have a say. In Utah, residents protested after Box Elder County commissioners approved a data center project whose electricity consumption is expected to exceed twice the state’s peak electricity demand in 2025 and that will also discharge hot air into the surrounding desert valley.
OpenAI’s proposal is to present the power facilities built to support new artificial intelligence data centers as “resources that utilities can call on when communities need them most.”
Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon and several other states have enacted laws prohibiting artificial intelligence companies from passing electricity costs on to residents. Some areas have also imposed project moratoriums and other controls. Such projects also have environmental impacts. A recent study by the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) found that, if all the data centers planned in Texas become operational, decades of local improvements in air quality could be wiped out in just 5 years.
To shed data centers’ poor public image, OpenAI has begun calling its artificial intelligence data centers “compute campuses.” The company says operating year-round without interruption helps lower costs for customers:
Electricity demand fluctuates with the seasons, and peak demand occurs at different times in different regions. Our compute campuses need electricity year-round. With the right agreements in place, that steady demand can spread the grid’s fixed costs across more electricity sales; we can also adjust our load and reduce electricity demand when the grid is under the greatest strain.
OpenAI said it would continue working with policymakers and electric utilities to “develop plans for future compute campuses to reduce their electricity load when the grid is under strain.” In addition to the Georgia data center, OpenAI is working with Oracle and SoftBank to build “Stargate” compute campuses at multiple sites across the United States, including Shackelford County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; and Milam County, Texas.