Learners Live

The Value of Dimming by Levin Nock

It’s easy to see the energy benefits of dimming: the more an LED fixture is dimmed, the less electricity it uses. In terms of future-proofing the energy savings of lighting projects, the longevity of LED products makes it paramount to strengthen requirements for dimmability and other lighting control strategies now, since LEDs installed today are expected to work for a decade or more. The latest version of the DesignLights Consortium’s (DLC) Solid-State Lighting (SSL)Technical Requirements stresses the importance of dimming as a way to increase energy savings, while allowing occupants of offices, conference rooms and other spaces to adjust light levels to their comfort or needs. All LEDs are inherently able to dim and nearly 100% of DLC-listed fixtures are dimmable. Expanded adoption is the necessary next step to capturing the benefits of dimming. The Value of Dimming | EC&M

Ireland Embraced Data Centers That Now Consume Too Much Energy by Matt O’Brien

Dozens of massive data centers humming at the outskirts of Dublin are consuming more electricity than all of the urban homes in Ireland and starting to wear out the warm welcome that brought them here. Now, a country that made itself a computing factory for Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok is wondering whether it was all worth it as tech giants look around the world to build even more data centers to fuel the next wave of artificial intelligence. Fears of rolling blackouts led Ireland’s grid operator to halt new data centers near Dublin until 2028. What other countries can learn from Ireland’s experience is to carefully manage the effect of data centers on the stability of the electricity system.      Ireland Embraced Data Centers That Now Consume Too Much Energy – electrifiED

Meta to Build $10B AI Data Center, Musk Expands AI Facility

The largest artificial intelligence data center ever built by Facebook’s parent company Meta is coming to northeast Louisiana, the company said Wednesday, bringing hopes that the $10 billion facility will transform an economically neglected corner of the state. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is expanding its existing supercomputer project in Memphis, Tennessee, the city’s chamber of commerce said Wednesday. The chamber also said that Nvidia, Dell, and Supermicro Computer will be “establishing operations in Memphis,” without offering further details. The U.S. Commerce Department found that there aren’t enough data centers in the U.S. to meet the rising AI-fueled demand, which is projected to grow by 9% each year through 2030, citing industry reports. Meta to Build $10B AI Data Center, Musk Expands AI Facility – tEDmag

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Hire – While most of us have heard the term artificial intelligence, few could predict the explosion of GenAI technologies in the public sphere over the last two years. In the work setting alone, Microsoft and LinkedIn reported that “75% of knowledge workers use AI at work” and “66% of leaders say they wouldn’t hire someone without AI skills”.                 

So how did this all happen:

1956, August: At the Dartmouth Conference, researchers discuss creating machines capable of intelligent behavior and the term “Artificial Intelligence” is introduced.

2017, June: Google researchers introduce the Transformer architecture, the foundation for generative AI (GenAI) models. (GPT = Generative Pre-trained Transformer)

2022, November: OpenAI unveils ChatGPT, a conversational GenAI model, marking a tipping point in public access and accelerated adoption.

2024 NOW: Commercialization is accelerating. Globally, the GenAI solutions market is expected to exceed $50 billion by 2028 with over 60,000 GenAI companies already doing business (Horban, 2024).  The biggest tech/communications companies are all involved in a very big way to drive and influence our lives now and in the future with their GenAI models:

  • OpenAI’s ChatGPT
  • xAI’s Grok
  • Google’s Gemini
  • Microsoft’s Copilot
  • Anthropic’s Claude
  • Apple’s Apple Intelligence
  • Meta’s Llama
  • Coming: Orion by OpenAI 

Plan for your future, because that is where you are going to spend the rest of your life. Mark Twain