Thread

1. aliasxneo · 1791145670 · focus · HN ↗

   I lived in a smaller rural town near a Google datacenter. During my career there I had routinely come across some outlandish accusations made about our water/power usage from the locals. But for obvious reasons I could never dispute them. I remember we hired a local who'd grown up in the town and he was "really surprised" when he started to see what we were doing to remain efficient.

   The current data center craze just feels like the same thing but on a bigger scale.

   1. BearOso · 1791154950 · focus · HN ↗

      The disparity is that older data centers were for storing and serving data. They have a lot of bandwidth and storage, but aren't consuming much energy. Plus, they are there to provide quicker access to data, to provide a service to actual people.

      New AI data centers are obviously compute-oriented instead. That means they consume a lot more power, like hundreds of megawatts. For perspective, on average a U.S. household uses only 1.2KW. Because of this, cooling needs are significantly increased, and while water usage is often overblown, noise volume is a major problem. At (edit) 10m, it often exceeds the 90dB threshold for hearing loss.

      Then there's the fact that millions of dollars of GPUs are inside these things, so security means lots of bright lights at all times of day.

      These are just problems with the physical presence of a data center, not to mention the electric bill hikes, land value loss, environmental effects, etc. And there's no obvious positives to one going up. No new jobs. No tax money because it's often elided with incentives from bribing local officials.

      With all the negatives and seemingly no benefits, ask yourself who wants these data centers, and why? If the only way to improve AI is using more and more compute like this, what is the end-game?

      1. tomr75 · 1791157804 · focus · HN ↗

         do you have data on no new jobs/tax revenue?

         1. BobbyTables2 · 1791158398 · focus · HN ↗

            I’m under the impression that most data centers have very few staff on site, almost zero.

            Sure, some temporary jobs during construction, but I bet it’s nothing like a retail store or factory in operation…

            As for taxable revenue, how does that help the community beyond property tax assessments?

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