AI Has Become "Power Heavyweight"
AI models up to 2022 could be trained on hundreds of GPUs, but from GPT-4 class onward, the scale is thousands to tens of thousands of GPUs running 100 days continuously. One training run uses power on the level of one small Japanese city.
Numbers for Scale
| Item | Scale |
|---|---|
| GPT-4-class training power | ~50 GWh (equiv. monthly use of 100k households) |
| Frontier cluster (2026) | 100MW-1GW (equiv. 0.5-1 nuclear reactor) |
| 1 ChatGPT query | ~3 Wh (5-10x a Google search) |
| 2026 world AI power | 2-3% of all world power forecast (IEA) |
| 2030 forecast | 5-10% of world power (high uncertainty) |
Location Competition
US South/Midwest
Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Ohio growing fast. Cheap power (natural gas, nuclear) and vast land are attractions.
