This is Nvidia's H100 GPU; it has a peak power consumption of 700W," Churnock wrote in a LinkedIn post. "At a 61% annual utilization, it is equivalent to the power consumption of the average American household occupant (based on 2.51 people/household). Nvidia's estimated sales of H100 GPUs is 1.5 – 2 million H100 GPUs in 2024. Compared to residential power consumption by city, Nvidia's H100 chips would rank as the 5th largest, just behind Houston, Texas, and ahead of Phoenix, Arizona."
Indeed, at 61% annual utilization, an H100 GPU would consume approximately 3,740 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually. Assuming that Nvidia sells 1.5 million H100 GPUs in 2023 and two million H100 GPUs in 2024, there will be 3.5 million such processors deployed by late 2024. In total, they will consume a whopping 13,091,820,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year, or 13,091.82 GWh.
To put the number into context, approximately 13,092 GWh is the annual power consumption of some countries, like Georgia, Lithuania, or Guatemala. While this amount of power consumption appears rather shocking, it should be noted that AI and HPC GPU efficiency is increasing. So, while Nvidia's Blackwell-based B100 will likely outpace the power consumption of H100, it will offer higher performance and, therefore, get more work done for each unit of power consumed.
Ter vergelijking: China verbruikt bijna 8.000.000 GWh.