Rung 07 / Where it runs, and the ceiling

Datacenters & Digital Infrastructure

Where inference runs, and what stops it running.

460 TWh

Electricity used by data centres, AI and cryptocurrency worldwide in 2022 — about 2% of global demand

21
Sources
6
Concepts
6
Entities
A machined steel rack rail with copper cage nuts, on paper.

In scope: capex and buildout timing, capacity and utilisation, cooling and PUE, site selection, the hyperscaler payer side — and power in full: generation (nuclear, gas, renewables), PPAs, grid interconnect queues, power arbitrage and energy ownership. Power is not a footnote on this rung. Out of scope: the silicon inside the building (hardware), what the compute costs to rent (inference-economics), and energy-transition subjects with no datacenter link, including grid storage, EVs and solid-state batteries.

A copper cold plate with its micro-channels cut away, between inlet and outlet manifolds.
CapexCapacityCoolingBuildout
Datacenters & Digital Infrastructure | Knowledge Base | MenFem