Fortnite gamers have acquired computing power that rivals that of some of the world's largest hyperscalers, and that is just from gaming PCs and consoles.
Fortnite Gamers Have Contributed Significantly Towards Modern-Day Hardware Advancements
In today's world, computing power is a major bottleneck, which is why hyperscalers are investing "hundreds of billions" in the AI frenzy to build their capabilities. One recent deal we discussed was the AMD-Meta agreement, which involved compute commitments worth up to 6 gigawatts. Interestingly, when talking about the deal, Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney revealed that Fortnite gamers alone consume up to 30 gigawatts of computing power, driven by high-end PCs and consoles. According to him, this is the largest-ever "gaming power base in existence".
Of course, the 30 gigawatt figure quoted by Sweeney has a lot of caveats, but one of the bigger ones is that the compute power isn't actual, concurrent usage, but rather a cumulative figure of the total player base. Another interesting point is that the gigawatt representation here isn't as similar to what we see in the AI world, since the workloads are entirely different. However, it is still a fantastic statistic to look at. It shows us how big the Fortnite world actually became over the years, credited to its distributed user base.
Sweeney's 30 gigawatt claim stems from Fortnite's reported total user base of around 650 million registered accounts globally, with a monthly active user base of 110 to 120 million. And given Epic Games' CEO's own hardware compute range per user, the 30 gigawatt figure does add up, so there's no inaccuracy there. However, the more interesting figure to look at would probably be the electricity bills generated if somehow, we actually managed to achieve a cumulative 30 gigawatt output, but that probably cannot happen.
Gamers have contributed signifcantly to the modern-day hardware advancements we are witnessing, given that AMD/NVIDIA was a gaming-first company until ChatGPT came along. Fortnite is just one example of the few instances where gaming-focused hardware has seen massive adoption over the years.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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