this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
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Yeah, that'll happen.

While AI bubble talk fills the air these days, with fears of overinvestment that could pop at any time, something of a contradiction is brewing on the ground: Companies like Google and OpenAI can barely build infrastructure fast enough to fill their AI needs.

During an all-hands meeting earlier this month, Google’s AI infrastructure head Amin Vahdat told employees that the company must double its serving capacity every six months to meet demand for artificial intelligence services, reports CNBC. The comments show a rare look at what Google executives are telling its own employees internally. Vahdat, a vice president at Google Cloud, presented slides to its employees showing the company needs to scale “the next 1000x in 4-5 years.”

While a thousandfold increase in compute capacity sounds ambitious by itself, Vahdat noted some key constraints: Google needs to be able to deliver this increase in capability, compute, and storage networking “for essentially the same cost and increasingly, the same power, the same energy level,” he told employees during the meeting. “It won’t be easy but through collaboration and co-design, we’re going to get there.”

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[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

So...no different from shareholders. Nothing changes while everything changes.

[–] magnetichuman@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"My loyal advisor," said the king, "I must grant you a reward for your many years of good service. What is it that you desire?" And the advisor asked the king, "Sire, simply give me one grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, two on the second square, four on the third square and so forth until all sixty-four squares are filled." "Such a small thing?" said the king. "It shall be done at once." And so the advisor was given all the rice in the kingdom.

[–] HappyHappyJoyJoy@beehaw.org 2 points 2 days ago

This is why I stick to Checkers.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 67 points 3 days ago

collapse already

[–] megopie@beehaw.org 21 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

puts a bunch of AI features in, turns them on by default without user’s asking for them, mandates employees use it when ever they can.

“How could this be a bubble? Look at all the demand!”

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 59 points 3 days ago (5 children)

If someone says 10x it's probably bullshit. 100x it's definitely bullshit. I don't even have a term for 1000x

[–] veeesix@lemmy.ca 23 points 3 days ago

Certified bullshit

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 10 points 3 days ago

If someone says 10x it's probably bullshit. 100x it's definitely bullshit. I don't even have a term for 1000x

The term we're looking for is "fantastic investment opportunity".

[–] chahk@beehaw.org 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

1,000x = KiloBullshit

100,000x = MegaBullshit

1,000,000x = GigaBullshit

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Schweinerei.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 11 points 3 days ago

1k bullshit

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 46 points 3 days ago

the next 1000x in 4-5 years

At the risk of stating the obvious, Ars is working backwards from this metric to get their headline "double every 6 months." 2^10 = 1024, to get that number in 5 years means doubling every half-year.

But Google didn't set incremental 6-month deadlines for 5 years straight, they set a single 5-year deadline. Because in 6 months shareholders can call their bluff quite easily, but in 5 years they're hoping everyone is A) distracted by some new disaster, or B) there's a new tech hype cycle they can push. They're trying to stall the bubble popping by pointing to a nebulous future where they magically scale to infinity, and hoping we all forget that they ever made this claim.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 28 points 3 days ago (3 children)

We need to turn the entire world into ~~paperclips~~ GPUs

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"Self-replicating GPUs that devour the world"

"Wake up honey, new apocalypse just dropped!"

[–] Lauchmelder@feddit.org 2 points 19 hours ago

Universal Paperclip got so close to predicting this

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago

Welcome to the Matrix.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago

Everyone was too concerned the AI would do it and wasn't looking close enough at the C-Suite Execs.

[–] TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social 26 points 3 days ago

Doubling every year would be crazy unsustainable at Google scale, but to tell employees you need to do so every 6 months seems like a fever dream of someone that doesn't understand what they are asking (or knows they aren't responsible for actually doing it). The old "just throw it over the fence" approach that corporate kool-aid drinkers love because they can take credit and shift blame.

[–] Gork@sopuli.xyz 27 points 3 days ago

Well that's totally sustainable.

[–] cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm really high and at first glance saw all the colorful pipes as like a 90s McDonalds play area.

I feel like that interpretation made this whole article ~70% less silly.

[–] martinb@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago

I saw an early 2k screensaver

[–] ozoned@piefed.social 20 points 3 days ago

Double every six months? Yeah. Totally feasible and absolutely not a bubble at all.

[–] salacious_coaster@infosec.pub 16 points 3 days ago

"demand" 😒👌🏻

[–] Battle_Masker@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 3 days ago

so... it'll collapse in 6 months?

[–] plyth@feddit.org 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Gaslighting. Processor capacity doubles every 2 years according to Moore's law which at best can be energy neutral. All other increases can only come from proportional energy increases. So instead of needing 1000x the energy, at best it is 250x.

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 22 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Moore's "law" died back in 2016. It's not held for a while now. The only way they can scale the way they want without a major breakthrough is more power and larger machines

[–] progandy@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

They will simply co-design the next generation of specialized compute hardware for neuronal networks, no problem! /s

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 5 points 3 days ago

collaboration and co-design

Bribing?

[–] Gerudo@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Better get some fully functioning fusion reactors to power all that.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 2 points 3 days ago

Tasha's going to love it!

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 days ago

what demand??

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 days ago

Google’s AI infrastructure head Amin Vahdat told employees that the company must double its serving capacity every six months to meet demand for artificial intelligence services, reports CNBC.

Sound awfully like a cancer tumour inside Amin's head.