IBM CEO Arvind Krishna walked through some napkin math on Big Tech's AI data center spending — and raised some doubts on if it'll prove profitable.
  • IBM’s CEO walked through some napkin math on data centers— and said that there’s “no way” to turn a profit at current costs.
  • “$8 trillion of CapEx means you need roughly $800 billion of profit just to pay for the interest,” Arvind Krishna told “Decoder.”
  • Krishna was skeptical of that current tech would reach AGI, putting the likelihood between 0-1%.
  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    112·
    1 day ago

    Lemmy is rather over-the-top for AI hate. I agree it can be damned useful, but can’t see it ever paying off for these companies.

    My bitching revolves around two items:

    1. It’s a fucking environmental disaster. Even without these data centers, we’re draining aquifers that took 1,000s of years to fill and major cities all over the planet are about to completely run out of water. And that’s not even touching on the power usage, pollution and how it’s affecting residential rates!

    2. It’s a fucking economic disaster. Have a look at the Buffett Index, total stock market valuation vs. GDP. It’s over 200% ATM and wasn’t close to that for the Great Depression, the dotcom bust or 2008. We are in deep shit.