I love this and agree with it almost in entirety. One thing that would be good to retain is 'regions' e.g 3 DCs under 10KM apart linked with free/very low cost internal network. It is cheap to build in colo these days with the advent of campus XCs and ever lowering cost of DF, optics and 400G/800G switches.
This is cool! In my experience the absolute most important factor for performance is that we are able to hold the FIB in CPU Cache, and my reading of this is that at >250K prefixes patrica may use less space? Did you find this?
E.g with a CPU with say 256MB L3 cache lookups are many many times more performant because you don't need to check ram on many/any lookups. Hot top levels in L2 > hot path in local CCD L3 > rest somewhere in socket L3 > DRAM misses (ideally almost 0)
London is about 3X bigger than Amsterdam in terms of capacity. If you look at the core western europe market (so called FLAP-D) which I am rather familiar with London holds 35% of that market and Amsterdam about 12%. I'm not at all sold that the old rule of thumb that this market is about 25% of global capacity has been true since about 2023 because of the AI buildout in NA/ME.
I am surprised a serious facility would be happy having 100 old LiPo batteries in a rack. That is a (nasty) fire waiting to happen IMO. These are old batteries that may even have minor physical damage from being dropped and will be in maybe a ~25-30c environment.
I agree, OTOH there are many very cool things that we can build if we're able to assume a user can spare 2GB of RAM that we'd otherwise have to avoid entirely like 3D scenes with Three.js, in-browser video/photo editing. Should be making sure that extra memory is enabling genuinely richer functionality, not just compensating for developer laziness (fewer excuses now than ever for that).
One thing that's not super obvious, but is happening - 'AI' is increasing demand for 'normal' (e.g cpu) compute. People are building more apps because the cost of software has reduced, these need deploying somewhere. More commits == more CI runs, then there's then the 'agent' usage, things like openclaw instances etc. Just because they are expanding, it might not mean they're betting the house on more GPUs (though likely a part of it)
What if all homes had battery storage and or solar? You could then simply use it's rectifier as needed or direct 48v from the solar panels. That would be even more efficient than 230v.
That'd be neat. But there's no standard for voltage for home solar: The batteries might be 12, 24, 48v, 60v, or even much more. Meanwhile, the panel arrays commonly output anything as low as 0V and up to ~600V. There's not much for rules and norms here.
Even if we were to standardize a low (<50V) voltage for DC distribution within homes, we'd still need ~120/240VAC to power big stuff, or we'd instead need even-larger conductors (more copper) than we use today to do the same work with low voltage.
But, sure -- we can play it out. So let's say we have an in-home 48VDC distribution standard and decide that this is the path forward and we enshrine it in law.
We need to convert whatever the solar system has available to 48VDC. Then, we need to distribute that 48VDC using a completely separate network of cabling. Finally, we still need to convert 48VDC to whatever it is that devices can actually use.
That's not representative of a reduction in steps, or an increase in efficiency.
That is instead just an increase in installed infrastructure expense, and a decrease in device compatibility. It takes what we have, which is simply universal (at least within any given geographical area) and adds complexity.
Is the juice worth the squeeze, though? Two sets of home wiring voltages? Substantially bigger copper wire inside the walls instead of existing copper, in order to do the same work? Two sets of appliances (of all sizes) on shelves at the store? More adapters?
Billy now needs to bring 2 wall warts to make sure he can charge his portable gear at a friend's house instead of just 1, because he's never sure until he gets there if they've got a 120 or 240v house like they all used to be, a combination house, or if it's one of those solar-only places that only has the weird plugs.
What we have now is 1 cable plant connecting the rooms of a home, and an increasing number of hybrid solar inverters that -- on a sunny day -- cheerfully convert solar power directly from whatever the panels are outputting to the 120/240 VAC wiring that both existing and future appliances know how to use. At night, these hybrid systems do do the same thing from whatever voltage the battery uses and convert that to AC. There's only 1 voltage, and only 1 plug; Billy brings 1 wall wart and knows he can charge his stuff.
To be sure: What we have not strictly ideal, but then neither is changing things without a clear positive benefit.
Again: What's the qualitative advantage of changing this, other than change for the sake of change?
DC might feel nice and neat, but in reality it doesn't seem to be shaped that way at all to me.
I'm not sure converting the solar and battery to 48V, distributing it around, and converting it to the needed voltage at the point of use is any more efficient than inverting it into 230V and distributing it around.
Also, you'll need wires that 5 times thicker. Instead of needing a reasonably 1mm^2 for a normal 16A line, you'll need 5mm^2 for the same power.
Solar and battery are already at 48v in most cases, so you are avoiding converting it to AC.
I agree, it's unserious to suggest a cooker or something high power is going to run off of 48v. But for loads like lights, PC/Laptop/TV/Audio 16a at 48v is ~770W which is adequate for these devices.
We live on societies, switching from AC to DC because your low-power home appliances doesn't need AC makes no sense. Home power usage is dominated by heating and cooling not by your 45w laptop charger.
DC infrastucture makes sense in highly specialised environments.... Like new gigawatt AI farms
Large home appliances probably mostly need DC power these days too. Look at clothes washers: they all have variable-speed reversing motors, so they're probably using brushless DC motors (which use motor drives that are fed with DC, and output variable-frequency and variable-amplitude sinusoidal waves to drive the motor). HVAC seems to be similar, with variable-speed motors and compressors.
I don't think that much stuff is left which actually needs AC power (usually to run an AC induction motor).
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