2026.11.08 · Vol. III · No. 45
Moo Toons Beta

Training Data Is Abundant, Only the Electricity Bill Keeps Rising

Large-scale language model training costs spiral astronomically, forcing one new AI startup after another to face funding crises.

October 29, 2026
Beta Illustrations are AI-generated. Character and style consistency is improving over time.
JOON raises both arms in a server room, seeing 97% training progress 1
Data was abundant. Electricity... we didn't know yet.
MIN holds up a massive electricity bill while JOON looks shocked 2
Training accuracy rose. Bank balance fell.
JOON presents a benchmark graph slide to investor SPARK 3
No matter how high the benchmark, the electricity bill must be paid in cash.
In the server room, VOLT shows JOON a power consumption chart that breaks off the graph 4
The AI was brilliant. An artificially expensive kind of brilliant.
JOON checks news of a competitor's shutdown on a smartphone while MIN hangs their head 5
The company might fold before the model is complete.
At dawn, the newly trained AI asks about electricity bill payment plans as its first question, leaving JOON and MIN frozen 6
There were 1 trillion training data points. In the end, the AI learned what mattered most.

This content is fictional and is not investment advice.

Fiction notice · These illustrations and this narrative are fiction generated by an AI system. The figures shown do not depict the real appearance, words or actions of any real person and assert no facts. Do not use them as a basis for investment decisions. Requests for correction or removal: nicepark0606@gmail.com. See the disclaimer.