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It is the opposite of refining energy. Electrical energy is steak, what leaves the datacenter is heat, the lowest form of energy that we might still have a use for in that concentration (but most likely we are just dumping it in the atmosphere).

Refining is taking a lower quality energy source and turning it into a higher quality one.

What you could argue is that it adds value to bits. But the bits themselves, their state is what matters, not the energy that transports them.



I think you're pushing the metaphor a bit far, but the parallel was to something like ore.

A power plant "mines" electron, which the data center then refines into words. or whatever. The point is that energy is the raw material that flows into data centers.


Maybe more like converting energy to data, as a more specific type of refinement.


Using energy to decrease the entropy of data. Or to organize and structure data.


I like that. Take random wild electrons and put them neatly into rows & columns where they can sit a spell.


This is OpenAI, they are not decreasing the entropy. This is refining coal into waste heat and CO2.




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