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From: Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Short Vectors Versus Long Vectors
Date: Wed, 1 May 2024 08:56:47 -0000 (UTC)
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Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> schrieb:
> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>
>> Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> schrieb:
>>
>>> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>>>
>>>> John Savard <quadibloc@servername.invalid> schrieb:
>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, 25 Apr 2024 05:39:55 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro
>>>>> <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, 24 Apr 2024 23:10:47 -0600, John Savard wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> One of the things that those supercomputers that _do_ include
>>>>>>> GPUs are praised for is being energy-efficient.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That I never heard before.  I heard it in relation to ARM CPUs,
>>>>>> yes, GPUs, no.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's one example of an item about this:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.infoworld.com/article/2627720/
>>>>>       gpus-boost-energy-efficiency-in-supercomputers.html
>>>>
>>>> Compared the late 1950s, was the total energy consumption by
>>>> computers higher or lower than today? :-)
>>>
>>> Total energy consumption by computers in the 1950s was lower
>>> than today by at least a factor of 10.
>>
>> Undoubtedly true, but I think you're missing quite a few
>> orders of magnitude there.
>
> Probably not as many as you think. :)
>
>>> It wouldn't surprise
>>> me to discover the energy consumption of just the servers in
>>> Amazon Web Services datacenters exceeds the 1950s total, and
>>> that's only AWS (reportedly more than 1.4 million servers).
>>
>> https://smithsonianeducation.org/scitech/carbons/1960.html states
>> that, in 1954, there were 15 computers in the US.  That seems low
>> (did they only count IBM 701 machines?), but it reportedly went up to
>> 17000 in 1964.
>>
>> Even if you put the number of computers at 100 for the mid-1950s, at
>> 100 kW each, you only get 10 MW of power when they ran (wich they often
>> didn't; due to maintenance, these early computers seem to have been
>> day shift only).
>
> Oh boy, numbers.
>
> First your question asked about the late 1950s, not the mid 1950s.
>
> I estimated between 10,000 and 20,000 computers by the end of
> the 1950s, and chose 5 KW as an average consumption.  In those
> days computers were big.  Probably the estimate for number of
> machines is a bit on the high side, and the average consumption
> is a bit on the low side.  I'm only estimating.

The number of computers is probably high, the power maybe somewhat
low, but let us take it as a basis - 2*10^4 computers with 5*10^3
Watt, total power if they are all on at the same time 10^8 Watt.
Let's assume an operating time of 4000 hours, so total energy
consumption would be around 1.44*10^15 J or 4*10^8 kWh, or
0.4 Terawatt-hours.

For today, we don't need to make an estimate
ourselves, we can use other people's.  Looking at
https://frontiergroup.org/resources/fact-file-computing-is-using-more-energy-than-ever/
one finds that data centers alone use around 240-340 Terawatt-hours,
so we have a factor of a bit less than 1000 alredy.  The total
sector, according to the same source, and also according to
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0677/POST-PN-0677.pdf
is around three times that.