{"id":1127,"date":"2026-11-04T12:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T11:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2026-11-04T12:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T11:12:09","slug":"ai-capex-i-energetski-zid-kada-softver-udari-u-granice-fizike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/ai-capex-i-energetski-zid-kada-softver-udari-u-granice-fizike\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Capex and the energy wall: When software hits the limits of physics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The four largest US tech giants - Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta - plan to invest around $735 billion this year, almost twice as much as last year, mostly in computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence, promising an immediate transformation of corporate productivity. However, the exponential expansion of data centres has unexpectedly hit the hardest possible wall: the capacity of the power grid. While algorithms and software models evolve in cycles of a few months, building power plants, substations and transmission lines moves at the pace of traditional heavy industry and takes years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/AI-capex-blog-1024x576.png\" alt=\"Podatkovni centri i struja u SAD-u: udio u potro\u0161nji s 4,4 % na 9,5\u201315 % do 2030., Capex tehnolo\u0161kih divova s 410 na 735 mlrd $, \u010dekanje na priklju\u010dak s 1\u20131,5 na oko 4 godine, PPA cijene s 57\u201364 na 64\u201379 $\/MWh\" class=\"wp-image-1128\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/AI-capex-blog-1024x576.png 1024w, https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/AI-capex-blog-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/AI-capex-blog-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/AI-capex-blog-1536x864.png 1536w, https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/AI-capex-blog-18x10.png 18w, https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/AI-capex-blog.png 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to projections by the US Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, data centres\u2019 share of US electricity consumption could rise from 4.4 percent (2023) to between 9.5 and 15 percent by 2030. Connecting a large data centre to the US grid now takes about four years on average, and up to seven years in Northern Virginia, the world\u2019s largest data centre hub. As a result, tech companies are signing direct long-term power purchase agreements with nuclear plants and investing in small modular reactors (SMRs), while North American renewable power purchase agreement prices are at their highest since 2018. At the same time, financial markets are starting to question capital expenditure (capex) that has grown from around $410 billion in 2025 to a planned $735 billion this year, while actual revenues from business use of AI tools are growing at a much slower and more cautious pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Technological progress cannot escape the laws of thermodynamics or the economics of return on capital. Sustainable competitive advantage in the coming phase will not go to those who simply train bigger models, but to those who solve the energy-efficiency problem and prove tangible operational value. When the digital world runs into physical infrastructure limits, value is not created by the loudest marketing narrative, but by the engineering solution that can deliver results at a sustainable cost per kilowatt-hour.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u010cetiri najve\u0107a ameri\u010dka tehnolo\u0161ka diva &#8211; Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon i Meta &#8211; ove godine planiraju ulo\u017eiti oko 735 milijardi dolara, gotovo dvostruko vi\u0161e nego lani, ponajvi\u0161e u ra\u010dunalnu infrastrukturu za umjetnu inteligenciju, obe\u0107avaju\u0107i trenuta\u010dnu transformaciju korporativne produktivnosti. Me\u0111utim, eksponencijalna ekspanzija podatkovnih centara neo\u010dekivano je udarila u najtvr\u0111i mogu\u0107i zid: kapacitete elektroenergetske mre\u017ee. Dok se algoritmi [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","rank_math_description":"","_sky_seo_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nekategorizirano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1129,"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zajedno.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}