正文 · AI 翻译
IT Home reported on October 27 that, according to a report by The Verge early today (the 27th), Anthropic, which is preparing to go public, disclosed in its S-1 registration filing the generative AI industry's heavy reliance on methane. The filing said there is fierce competition for electricity supply and data center sites with good access to power.
Anthropic acknowledged in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that data centers are increasingly reliant on “natural gas,” whose main component is methane.
This means Anthropic's plans to build AI data centers will be constrained by rising fuel prices and supply chain bottlenecks. The filing also acknowledged that the rise in global temperatures caused by burning fossil fuels will further increase its own operating costs.
Some planned data centers will need to generate electricity on site using gas turbines. Anthropic rents computing resources from major cloud service providers and last year also announced a $50 billion investment plan (IT Home note: approximately 334.188 billion yuan at current exchange rates) to expand data center capacity in Texas and New York.
The United States has the highest concentration of data centers in the world. To meet data centers' continually growing electricity demand, the scale of fossil fuel power generation facilities planned in the United States is set to reach its highest level in a decade.
A shortage of gas turbines has also slowed data center construction. To shorten the wait for grid connections, some developers have chosen to install gas-fired internal combustion engines to generate their own electricity. Because gas turbine manufacturers have backlogs of orders, developers have also turned to relatively simple gas turbine technology, reducing the efficiency of on-site power generation and increasing pollution.
Even as data centers increase greenhouse gas emissions, Anthropic treats climate change as a business risk in its listing filing. As temperatures rise, the electricity and water bills required to cool data center servers will also increase.
Anthropic also expects competition for natural gas supplies and gas pipeline capacity to intensify as major cloud service providers and data center operators race to build data centers, potentially driving up gas prices.
IT Home learned from the report that natural gas generation accounts for 40% of total U.S. electricity generation and is the country's leading method of generating power. As utilities step up upgrades to energy infrastructure to meet continually growing electricity demand, Americans are also facing increasingly high costs.
Residents across the United States who oppose data center construction have successfully blocked dozens of proposed projects. Anthropic acknowledged that concern about sharp increases in electricity bills alone could affect the progress of data center projects. “If the measures we take to secure electricity supply are perceived to affect other electricity users and the grid as a whole, regulators may impose restrictions, charge backup power fees, or make other demands to address those impacts.”
If regulators require data center developers to bear more of the construction costs of new energy infrastructure, Anthropic's operating expenses could rise further. If a stable supply of natural gas cannot be secured, or if the pipelines needed to transport it are unavailable, some data center construction plans could even be delayed or canceled. These issues could ultimately constrain Anthropic's business growth.