That is the setting I am having in 1 o’clock in the morning. The news (and the internet) is currently overloading with Jimmy Kimmel stories as well as vindictive settings against Disney and I get it. When the media who is trumpeting free speech is becoming the bitch of President Trump, people will not take kindly to this. Apparently the subscription servers at Disney went down as it was overloaded with cancellations (according to some sources). So I had to look all over the place on the settings of finding something to write about and Tom’s Hardware was one source who supplied the goods. The story (at https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-announces-worlds-most-powerful-ai-data-center-315-acre-site-to-house-hundreds-of-thousands-of-nvidia-gpus-and-enough-fiber-to-circle-the-earth-4-5-times) gives us ‘Microsoft announces ‘world’s most powerful’ AI data center — 315-acre site to house ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Nvidia GPUs and enough fiber to circle the Earth 4.5 times’ and even as I don’t care too much about what happens in Wisconsin (other than the need to protect cheeses, I really like cheese) is the fact that when I see an article with that much data, I start looking for missing data, I am wired that way and it is less than 4.5 times around the planet.
But we got something, the setting is given with “This is likely a comparison to xAI’s Colossus, which uses over 200,000 GPUs and 300 megawatts of power. Microsoft didn’t specify its exact number of GPUs nor the expected power consumption.” And that is the ball game. You see, the setting of 300MW is not just a lot, it is the entire ballgame. Now, there is evidently enough power in Wisconsin, but is it enough? Consider a simple PC. It has a 600W power supply. Now this is not the same, but I am getting to that. Take 200 PC’s, that makes it 120,000 Watts of energy. Now consider that hundreds of PC’s are needed to even partially validate the data coming into that place. You need data verification spots to do that. The larger setting could be done by data entry people, people who go over the received data and they need to work quick, almost uninterrupted. As such the quote “Microsoft didn’t specify its exact number of GPUs nor the expected power consumption” is as I personally see it, massively deceptive. Just like the stage of Builder.ai where Microsoft set it to over a billion dollars and in months that money was gone, they apparently spend it on under 200 programmers (test engineers) and that is merely the start of it. And when we talk about enough fibre to circumvent the planet 4.5 times you get 57,402 km of fibre won’t that take any energy? The numbers aren’t adding up and even as Wisconsin has energy, there is every likelihood that they ‘suddenly’ have a shortage of energy. Oh, what a damn shame and the setting of any data centre is that in case of a shortage of energy it all ends right quick, the moment the surplus hits zero, the issues start and they will immediately escalate.
Further down that page we see the mention of Elon Musk: “Elon Musk confirms xAI is buying an overseas power plant and shipping the whole thing to the U.S. to power its new data center — 1 million AI GPUs and up to 2 Gigawatts of power under one roof, equivalent to powering 1.9 million homes”, well good luck with that idea. I am not saying it is impossible, but the setting of getting that all placed in a new location still requires a lot of concrete and not to mention the stage of the resources to get the plant going, so what is it? Gas, oil, coal, Uranium?
So what is fueling the Microsoft plant? And how much surplus energy will Wisconsin have left at that point? As I see it, there is a reason that Microsoft doesn’t give out the expected power consumption. And there are a few more items on that list, like validators (could be done remotely) so hundreds of people calling into that centre what drives the telecom settings? All issues that would have to be tackled on day one.
As I see it, there is a lack of focal points, but as I see it, those who spin aren’t interested in that concept at all. Merely the floatation of the name in conjunction with “‘world’s most powerful’ AI data center”, didn’t Microsoft do this once before? Oh yes, the most powerful console in the world. How did that end with that Xbox series X? As far as I know it is trailing the weakest console (Nintendo Switch) by a lot and it is also trailing the PlayStation 5 a fair bit. So I am not keeping my hope up when Microsoft is juggling the setting “World’s most powerful…anything”
But then I have seen them play these cards for almost 40 years. And they could have taken advice from IBM on certain matters, like “This page is intentionally kept blank”
But that is just me.
The second setting is being pushed forward. I don’t want to write the wring thing and there are a few missing cogs in that story. Like the ‘new’ location on $4,300 billion retirement funds. And no one is talking so I have to dig.
Well, have a great day, time for Sunday to get a sun (in 4 hours) and consider looking around for freedom of speech, Disney seemingly can’t find it.









