AI: enterprises are active — but cautious

The latest, and by far the largest, wave in AI is still in its early phases, but the narrative is already spectacular. Generative AI, despite its limitations, has immediately impressed and inspired most of its users. The amount of money being committed, as well as the scale of deployment and infrastructure being rolled out, has surpassed all previous imagination. Such data center investment, power densities, scale and energy use were unthinkable before 2022.

The standout narratives and data points come from industry giants such as Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, Google and Tesla, as well as their GPU provider, Nvidia. These companies are building foundational models with thousands of GPUs, which require tens or even hundreds of megawatts of power and cost billions of dollars. First-hand accounts of these deployments, shared under non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) at Uptime Institute network member meetings, have astonished managers accustomed to a low-risk, step-by-step approach.