AI EncyclopediaChips & deep techData centers & power
Gigawatt (GW)
기가와트(GW)
A large unit for measuring electrical power. One gigawatt is 1 billion watts, about what one large nuclear reactor produces.
Overview
A watt shows how much electricity is used or made at a single moment. One microwave oven uses around 1,000 watts (1 kilowatt). One gigawatt is 1 million times that. One reactor in a nuclear power plant produces roughly 1 gigawatt.
In AI news, data centers are described by electricity, not by floor area. The more chips there are, the more electricity they use, so "a data center of several gigawatts" lets you guess how many AI chips are inside. But the announced figures are often plans to build over several years, so you need to look separately at how much has actually been built.
An everyday example
Just as a car engine's strength is given in horsepower, a data center's size is given in gigawatts. The bigger the number, the more AI chips it can run.
Why it matters
Headlines like "a deal worth several gigawatts" have become common. If you have a feel for how many power plants this unit equals, you can see how big the plan is and why finding the electricity is a problem.
Also calledGW