January 31, 2026
No gas, all sass
Direct Current Data Centers
Solar-only AI power sparks flame war: genius or goofy
TLDR: Two researchers say future AI data centers should run directly on solar panels and batteries, cutting out gas and the grid. Commenters split between ethics (“don’t power chatbots over human needs”) and engineering doubts (land, gigawatt scale, location), with bonus jokes about space data centers lighting up the thread.
A bold new post claims the future of AI is a giant solar farm plugged straight into batteries and GPUs—no grid, no gas, no turbines—just direct current and “delete” everything else. The authors say it’s cheaper, faster, and boosts tokens per dollar (aka more AI output for the money) by ditching backup gas plants and oversizing solar and storage. They even tease “space-based inference,” which is as sci‑fi as it sounds.
Cue the comment circus. One camp is cackling at the idea of solar-only “spicy electrons” feeding chatbots, with ErroneousBosh dropping the mic: why burn acres of panels for “toy chatbots?” Others, like hambes, went full ethics mode: if we’re mastering planet-scale power, why not food, transport, or real-world needs instead of word generators?
The engineering crowd showed up with receipts. bob1029 warned that once you hit gigawatt-scale data centers, it’s “hard to argue with gas turbines,” pointing to land needs and long power lines. Meanwhile, phtrivier asked the real-world question: put these DC centers in deserts near solar, or near customers and wire the juice? Either way, wires become the inconvenient “moving parts.”
Havoc tossed gasoline on the fire by noting China’s chatter about space data centers, spawning memes about orbital server farms. The thread’s running joke: the authors’ mantra of “Delete” became “Ctrl+Alt+Delete the grid.” Love it or roast it, the solar-only dream just lit up the internet brighter than a thousand rooftops.
Key Points
- •The authors propose AI data centers powered solely by direct-current solar arrays and lithium batteries, eliminating gas turbines and grid components.
- •They argue GPUs are the cost driver (~$50,000/kW) and require simple DC power, making power provision simpler than compute.
- •Solar modules act as near-constant current sources (~40 V) and lithium batteries as near-constant voltage sources (~3.9 V), favoring DC operation.
- •Running solar, batteries, and GPUs in series at ~1000 V aims to reduce copper requirements and improve efficiency.
- •Optimizing tokens per dollar, they claim scaling solar and battery for 99%+ uptime and deleting rarely used gas infrastructure can lower overall costs.