So this was a thing long before the AI boom.

Some c suite dullard at my old job got dinged for not having proper redundancy for a datacenter at one of the companies they binge-ingested. So the “solution” was to build an offsite hot swap replica at another location that was pretty much at capacity for power delivery (and distribution: they let UPS systems run at 90+ capacity for years because “it’s not 100%”, only for there to be a mad scramble once that final straw got reached and the failures started). The power company said it was a minimum 6 month lead time for an additional transformer to be installed with no guarantees.

I can believe that it’s only gotten worse since then.

Herp derp

“We are trying to solve for the unknown constantly,” says Kevin Doddridge, chief executive officer of Mississippi’s Northcentral Electric Cooperative. It was his company that helped out another utility in a pinch to accommodate the xAI data center, trucking spare units 60 miles south to Tallahatchie Valley Electric Power Association.