Ask Lemmy

I asked a chatbot that question a few months ago when I was trying them out. It came up with lots of bullshit ideas that make no sense to me, and one genuine use for some of that surplus data centre capacity: Scientific computing. Physics, astronomy, climate simulations, that sort of thing.

Aside from that maybe when all the big AI companies go bust their assets will be bought up by new operators who will continue to flood the market with cheap generative AI, without the burden of having to pretend that it's possible to pay off all the debt incurred in building it. There are only so many high-energy physics simulations it's worth doing and having that many GPUs is not really useful for much else that anyone's discovered so far.

According to the Internet though it is said that the useful lifespan of a big Nvidia data centre GPU is something like 5-10 years, so it won't be a problem for long.

You will rent your computer and be happy

Honestly, I imagine a combination of all of these things. Some will probably be abandoned, some liquidated, some bought up by other keen companies. Whatever is most economically viable at the time.

They think they can be parted out (maybe), or at least that’s how they pitch it to investors. Never mind the fact that chips get old and depreciate.

What happens is recession for all, not just us.

Burn

They will get bought up for pennies by the few surviving AI companies, who will establish themselves as the definitive AI giants

converted into lasertag arenas

Cheap hardware sales?

An era of cheap used hardware? I would guess probably like whatever happened after the dotcom bubble in the late 90s.