Comment by aussieguy1234
6 days ago
Iceland is a small country, so it'll depend on what power infrastructure is already there, too much power consumption will overload the grid - unless they build new power plants and other infra.
6 days ago
Iceland is a small country, so it'll depend on what power infrastructure is already there, too much power consumption will overload the grid - unless they build new power plants and other infra.
Almost all countries have taxes and regulations on electricity (grid maintenance isn't free!), however at AI datacenter scale it makes sense to build the power plant on the same site as the datacenter, therefore avoiding those electricity taxes.
So wherever you build, you'll most likely be building the same wattage of power station as you do datacenter.
Lots of other resources can be shared too - for example shared cooling systems
Power is why you would build in Iceland. There is a lot of geothermic potential there. It's after all, the land of hot springs and volcanoes. So if you need more power, build a new geothermic power plant.
Historically they had so much "cheap" energy that they built aluminium smelting plants.