Amin Girasol

The promise and the reality:

The story of the Loughton supercomputer is an insight into the dizzying ambitions for artificial intelligence as an economic powerhouse, in the UK and beyond – but also how those hopes can dissolve into a less exciting reality.

The $17.5bn investment represents a plan, by a UK company, to buy chips made in Taiwan by a US company, put them in a building in Loughton, and rent them to another US tech company.

Asked about how the site would create 750 jobs, Nscale could not say how this figure had been calculated.

Again and again, @davidgerard, Ed Zitron and others have highlighted that many of these loudly trumpeted "commitments" and "contracts" to invest billions are nothing more than hype to inflate the AI balloon. Here's another shabby example. Who's behind it? Former crypto bros, of course.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/09/from-press-release-to-scrap-metal-site-the-essex-supercomputer-thats-still-a-scaffolding-yard

#pivotToAi #cryptobros #FuckAI

Mar 9 at 6:10pmWeb
Show threadMarjorieRMar 10
@fluidlogic @davidgerard apart from only just applying for planning permission I assume they already have firm contracts in place for a power supply and some means of cooling it (probably water - in a part of the country that is already running short)?
Show threadAmin GirasolMar 10

@marjolica @davidgerard great question!

Services in the UK are all privatised now, but considering the potential resource usage, this question is a matter of interest to local government, isn't it?

Show threadDavid GerardMar 10
@fluidlogic @marjolica it is impossible to overstate what an out of his depth moron Peter Kyle was. Liz Kendall is unfortunately not much better.