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Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware
Technology
Aaron Klotz

AMD says zettascale supercomputers will need half a gigawatt to operate, enough for 375,000 homes

AMD Nvidia
Stock image of nuclear cooling towers.

AMD discussed the limiting factors of AI accelerator development at ISC 2025 — notably, the increasing power requirements of these bleeding-edge chips. ComputerBase reports that AMD expects ZettaFLOP-capable supercomputers of the future to require a nuclear power plant's worth of energy to operate.

AMD shared a graph of the projected growth of supercomputer power consumption until 2035. The graph starts between 2010 and 2015, when supercomputers required just 3.2GF/watt to run. The graph then extends (in a straight line) all the way to 2035, when AMD predicts zetta-scale supercomputers will require 2140GF/watt of power, or half a gigawatt of power. The graph assumes a 2x efficiency improvement in AI processor development every 2.2 years.

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