AI datacenter bottlenecks: a field engineer’s view

Generative AI shifted the bottleneck conversation from “more VMs” to power, cooling, memory bandwidth, and fabric design. Private-cloud operators feel this even when GPUs sit in someone else’s region: capacity planning, interconnection, and security boundaries all move.

From an infrastructure seat, the useful questions are: rack power density vs building power, HBM and packaging limits vs training schedules, and whether the network is ready for east-west training traffic without melting the core.

The 2025 paper walks the full stack — semiconductors through macro grid. Use the interactive dashboard when you need scenario-style numbers for conversations with facilities and finance.