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Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

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Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#81

Post by agentultra »

perks_12 wrote: post #44
bigmadshoe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We do. But currently we are choosing the Luddite way of doing things. Simply ignoring this fantastic technology is not a choice but economic suicide.

The Luddite movement wasn’t opposed to progress or technology. They were demanding protections from exploitation by the capital class: abolishment of child labour, fair wages, social protection from job loss, etc.

There was no labour law at the time. Destroying the machines was a way to gain leverage, nothing more.

Ultimately the capitalists won that conflict. Many Luddites were murdered or jailed. And the history that was written tried to tell us that the Luddites were backwards peasants who didn’t understand technology and progress.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#82

Post by stymaar »

margalabargala wrote: post #67
dgellow wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments read as unhinged. Do you actually believe that HN audience of all places is composed of Luddite? People who are working in the tech industry but are somehow anti future because they are concerned by the ever growing energy demand from AI? How much are you ok to sacrifice to the LLM gods before you would start to question the technology?

Well, that depends. How much do you actually know about the Luddites, versus making assumptions vs their use as a pejorative in pop culture? The more our definition of "Luddite" becomes historically accurage, the more it is true that yes, the HN audience is composed of people like that.

> The more our definition of "Luddite" becomes historically accurage, the more it is true that yes, the HN audience is composed of people like that.

Ah yeah, the people of HN, well known for burning down datacenters.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#83

Post by GuestFAUniverse »

vessenes wrote: post #66
amluto wrote: post #60

To me, datacenters, especially for AI (which tolerates an extra hundred ms of latency quite well) seem like an unusual form of development. Many forms of development have similar downsides: they destroy green space, they can be noisy, they compete for energy resources [0], etc. On the flip side, though, most new developments add substantial value: jobs, tax revenue, increased industry around them, local availability…

Why don't they pay much in taxes? hyperscalers are pretty profitable.

Where? What do you tax? Per request?

They will shuffle most gains around to the place with the lowest taxes. E.g. by internally buying and selling (overpriced) services.

The only realistic tax is coming from the jobs that serve those data centres (builders, maintenance, that little IT staff left for on-site jobs). And those are rather low margin jobs.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#84

Post by hylaride »

palmotea wrote: post #74
vessenes wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they pay much in taxes? hyperscalers are pretty profitable.

> Why don't they pay much in taxes? hyperscalers are pretty profitable. I wouldn't be surprised if those profits are re-imagined as costs paid to some entity in a tax-haven. Also there's different kinds of taxes. IIRC, local communities get their revenue from sales taxes and property taxes. A data center doesn't sell anything, so they probably get zero from that. I don't really know how they'd factor into property ta…

Many jurisdictions have lower property taxes for certain kinds of industrial/commercial zoning in the name of bringing in jobs, etc. You sometimes see clusters of businesses at border areas of jurisdictions for this reason. Sometimes it's other advantages. Bottled water companies often take advantage of cheaper municipal water for "industrial" use, for example.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#85

Post by oersted »

amluto wrote: post #60

To me, datacenters, especially for AI (which tolerates an extra hundred ms of latency quite well) seem like an unusual form of development. Many forms of development have similar downsides: they destroy green space, they can be noisy, they compete for energy resources [0], etc. On the flip side, though, most new developments add substantial value: jobs, tax revenue, increased industry around them, local availability…

I'm confused, do they really have such an impact? They are of course big and expensive, but surely most datacenters are relatively innocuous in terms pollution and general disruption to the area compared to any regular heavy-industry site, right? Please let me know if I'm wrong, I'm not sure.

EDIT: I do get it, it is mainly about local benefit not really about pollution or disruption, even if they are loud about that because it sounds better. Local municipalities should definitely charge significant land rents or zoning fees so that the community benefits. China has been very successful at this for decades.

EDIT: Very rough overview after some research, using Colossus 1 as reference, which is among the biggest GPU deployments. Not thoroughly verified, but it'll be around the right ballpark.

- Electricity: 150 MW live, with another 150 MW planned/studied. That is like adding a medium electric-arc steel mill or large chemical plant to the grid. A small standard power-plant can generate about that much.

- Land / space: About 217 acres and 785,000 sq ft. Footprint-wise, that is like a large factory campus or logistics park; much smaller than a mine, port, refinery, or industrial farm, but far beyond a normal commercial warehouse.

- Water: Roughly 1.3–3M gallons/day in public estimates. That is comparable to the consumptive water use of a small-to-mid steel plant or a large industrial cooling site; not refinery-scale, but locally significant.

- Air pollution: The servers are not the dirty part; the issue is on-site gas turbines/generators. That makes it more like a small gas peaker plant than a steel mill or chemical plant. Colossus 1 reportedly used up to 35 gas turbines before grid connection.

- Noise: Mainly cooling equipment, substations, batteries, turbines/generators. More like living near a substation or small power plant than near a mine, port, or metalworks.

- Traffic / logistics: Heavy during construction, then relatively light. Much less disruptive than a port, mine, farm, steel plant, or refinery, because there is no constant flow of ore, scrap, fuel, chemicals, crops, containers, or waste.

- Heat: Nearly all consumed electricity becomes heat. At 150–300 MW, the heat rejection is industrial-scale, closer to a small power station / large process plant than normal manufacturing.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#86

Post by tmvphil »

__m wrote: post #52
ianm218 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italian farmers pay effectively 0% taxes on land and the areas are quite poor. Data centers on the other hand pay lots of taxes. Why would they ban productive uses of land?

[flagged]

1/3 of food produced isn't eaten either.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#87

Post by dukeyukey »

john_strinlai wrote: post #36
dukeyukey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The services provided by a data center do provide jobs. My job for one, and I'm guessing a majority of posters here too.

they said "that many jobs" not "no jobs". compared to something like a car factory, data centers do not provide that many jobs. (and the jobs are of significantly different nature)

Directly, sure. Indirectly, they have created many millions of jobs. Tens of millions at the very lowest. There are nearly 30 million web developers alone.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#88

Post by notrealyme123 »

vessenes wrote: post #66
amluto wrote: post #60

To me, datacenters, especially for AI (which tolerates an extra hundred ms of latency quite well) seem like an unusual form of development. Many forms of development have similar downsides: they destroy green space, they can be noisy, they compete for energy resources [0], etc. On the flip side, though, most new developments add substantial value: jobs, tax revenue, increased industry around them, local availability…

Why don't they pay much in taxes? hyperscalers are pretty profitable.

Because company profits are booked at their European HQ (so Ireland or Luxembourg).

So there is little profit being taxed at the Datacenter/country Level.

Re: Lombardy increases charges for the construction of data centres in green areas

#90

Post by jlebar »

bigmadshoe wrote: post #35
perks_12 wrote: post #19

Datacenters need cheap energy, something no region in Europe is having in abundance (except maybe Norway, Sweden, and Finland). I don't think Lombardy was seeing too much DC construction. It's just typical green politics. Forever backwards. Sure, people feel somewhat AI-fatigued, but blocking the future won't play out nicely for Italy or Europe in general.

[flagged]

OOC, which past exactly do you want to go back to (and presumably stay at)?
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