Anthropic To Cover Costs of Electricity Price Increases From Its Data Centers

AI startup Anthropic says it will ensure consumer electricity costs remain steady as it expands its data center footprint. From a report: Anthropic said it would work with utility companies to "estimate and cover" consumer electricity price increases in places where it is not able to sufficiently generate new power and pay for 100% of the infrastructure upgrades required to connect its data centers to the electrical grid.

In a statement to NBC News, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said: "building AI responsibly can't stop at the technology -- it has to extend to the infrastructure behind it. We've been clear that the U.S. needs to build AI infrastructure at scale to stay competitive, but the costs of powering our models should fall on Anthropic, not everyday Americans. We look forward to working with communities, local governments, and the Administration to get this right."

O fuck off

[liqu1d]

This shouldn't be a marketing move this should be the default!

Re:

[fluffernutter]

Was going to say pretty much the same thing... stop talking like this is a 'favour' big corp is doing for the little people.

Re:O fuck off

[geekmux]

This shouldn't be a marketing move this should be the default!

Uh, the marketing move is to make you believe this is true.

The default is to make you pay for it anyway. Because they can.

The standard, should be to prove AI is worth the effort. Against the very entity it's destroying. So far, the answer is a resounding NO.

Re: O fuck off

[liqu1d]

"We want to take your job and make you pay for us to do it" "o don't worry we're paying now" - erm thanks?

Not their money

[algaeman]

Anthropic isn't spending their own money. Someone else is paying for this, ultimately I'm sure it is the big funds that are holding everybody's retirement accounts that will get stuck with the debt once the bubble bursts.

Re:O fuck off

[ForkInMe]

While I agree it is a marketing move, the first thing I thought of was it was another jab at OpenAI in an attempt to make it harder for them to become profitable.

Re:

[JoshuaZ]

Why? Would you insist this for when a new manufacturing plant is in an area also, or just data centers?

Re: O fuck off

[liqu1d]

Yes of course. Why should I subsidise a company. Especially a company large enough they'll inevitably do their best to avoid paying anything back into the community that's paid for it. I would be much happier to pay to hook up a small business as they're more likely to pay taxes.

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[JoshuaZ]

Well, that's consistent, so I will have to give you credit for that. You are aware that pretty much no one does this and we've never insisted that high electricity using corporations do this, yes?

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[sabbede]

Okay, so why are you complaining when someone does it? Why not say, "Good! I'm glad to see these companies are starting to do the right thing."?

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[allo]

Tell the power companies. They are free to tell data centers what they have to pay.

BYOB

[ozzymodus12]

They should provide their own power and stay off the grid.

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[Alain Williams]

No, coal if the orange climate denier has anything to do with it. Trump has ordered the pentagon to buy more coal-fired electricity [nytimes.com], one of his biggest and most persistent lies is that climate change is a hoax.

Re:

[unixisc]

Again, those big AI users can have those modular nuclear reactors in their garage. Or if there is a big fuss, maybe move those datacenters, nuclear reactors and everything to remote parts of the country, along w/ their users. They can use satellite internet like Starlink (never mind the latency), while doing their 24/7 operations, w/o requiring the rest of the population to pay for them

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[sabbede]

And covering the costs of expanding supply and grid infrastructure isn't good enough... why?

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[unixisc]

Precisely! Or even better yet - don't use datacenters at all! For those who do want and need AI, those people can get those special GPU compute boxes like a Dell GB10 and run their AI requirements on those. That way, they can pay for the electricity if they need to run them 24/7, and if they can't afford that, then they can simply run them when they need an AI operation done, as opposed to doing it 24/7

Datacenters should similarly provide for their own power, or factor that in while putting together SL

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[Junta]

Problem is they happily do that, with noisy and polluting portable gas generators in big trailers.

Note when Elon declared that the only practical path forward was tens of thousands of starship launches a year to let the datacenter be built (which is stupid), his assertion was that the solar panels and launch logistics were easier than making more turbines for natural gas generators. Again, a stupid stance, but it says that they consider plopping down natural gas generators a critical path..

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[EvilSS]

...but it says that they consider plopping down natural gas generators a critical path..

Some are looking at old jet engines for this : https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-d... [ieee.org]

They say it now but...

[Inglix the Mad]

I'll believe that the moment the money is in escrow, untouchable by them, unless the service upgrades are canceled before they are started. After all there's a dozen different ways to pass the buck on costs.

I wonder how much free money are they getting from various governments for the projects?

Wealthy people NEVER use their own money. In America it's socialism for the wealthy and rugged individualism for the poor. Wait, why are they pulling that ladder up?

Georgia is moving to take away the right to vote

[rsilvergun]

for the State electric commission board. The motor is overwhelmingly put somebody in charge who would block data centers because of course they did so the republican-led state legislation is going to pass a law making the position appointed instead of elected so the Republican Governor can appoint whoever will rubber stamp the data centers.



A town in Arizona voted to block a data center and the State corporate commission are is going to override them. So much for local government.

Anthropic will say

Re:

[sabbede]

You mean my State's Public Services Commission? That's not what's going on. We already have a rule there that data centers can't increase consumer rates, and the PSC doesn't get to decide if data centers can be built. You're thinking of Alabama. Alabama is moving to an appointed board, not Georgia. We just had our big legislative session, and that wasn't a thing.

I can tell you that a number of counties and municipalities have enacted moratoriums on new data centers, and many more are actively conside

Thanks you're correct

[rsilvergun]

I mixed up Alabama and Georgia. It's still the same basic problem where the state legislature is stepping in to prevent democracy from working. The voters wanted something and the powers to be do not and the powers that be are winning.

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[sabbede]

No prob, it happens. Just don't do it while actually here, nobody wants to be mistaken for one of those sister-f*kers. (This is a Southern joke - everyone looks down on Alabama)

With all the money they are burning

[gweihir]

What is a little more?

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[Mr. Dollar Ton]

It doesn't matter, because this is just another advertisement campaign.

I'd like to know how are they going to evaluate the cost difference. Perhaps Claude will give us the estimates?

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[gweihir]

It doesn't matter, because this is just another advertisement campaign.

Agreed. And whether they will actually "cover" anything is not even assured.

when [it] broke my pretty balloon / i woke up

[Pseudonymous Powers]

AI companies paying to prevent energy price rises is not, in any real way, going to happen. That would be so many dollars, y'all. They couldn't do it even if they wanted to.

Re:

[Khan]

I was just going to post "oh yeah?...with WHO'S money??!" Good job calling them out ðY'

Now reprint the books you destroyed

[xack]

And pay all the server bills for all the sites you scraped plus lost ad revenue compensation. Then pay UBI for all the employees that got laid off to AI.

I'll believe it when I see it

[flibbidyfloo]

More likely what we'll see is city and state officials taking kickbacks from Anthropic to greenwash and launder their finances so it looks like they are doing something good.

The big question is

[whitroth]

for how long? Just the year it goes online? Or for the next ten or twenty years?

Free energy?

[SouthSeb]

An idea would be to lawmakers passing laws (yeah, I know!) requiring big tech to pay for all of the energy generation and (most of the) infrastructure, effectively making energy free for all residential consumers in the US.

It would of course need some thought, adjustments and compromises, but I think it's doable.

The BS smell is strong this one

[Nicholas Grayhame]

insert Brooklyn bridge joke here...

They're lying

[sinkskinkshrieks]

There's no way they're going to calculate costs or pay people's increased utility bills. Fuck these assholes.

The only way out is a nationwide law that forbids spreading grid costs of mega users onto everyone else.