If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret? • Hacker News Board

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#41

Post by swatcoder » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

Modern data centers are effectively mines, but without even the upside of supporting a local economy.

They extract local resources (land, power, grid capacity, water, etc) and sell that as compute. As a rule, the mine operators are national or multi-national firms that have no presence with which to invest the extraction profits back into the community. The local resources are harvested, processed, and sold, and then the proceeds disperse into the books of these gargantuan, far-off operators.

The only way to recover some of the profits on those local resources where they're being harvested would be with taxes or similar ongoing development obligations, but the firms specifically predate on communities too politically weak to levy those against them.

If AI isn't just an speculative bubble with gross overinvestment, they may have important value as a national economic or security interest, but they're pretty terrible and lop-sided deal for existing communities. That's why they're kept quiet.

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#42

Post by Karrot_Kream » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

atleastoptimal wrote: post #16

What is the advantage to not keeping them a secret? The populist movement against AI is growing rapidly, and is supported by bunk science which affirms people's pre-existing biases (like the idea that data centers suck up all the water in a community, or raise the ambient temperature by a single-double digit number of degrees F). AI is a genuine source of economic growth. I can understand wanting to curtail it, but i…

The US has deindustrialized and since the rise of NIMBY politics hasn't built new industry in any scale at all. The first freeway revolts happened in 1959. In the meantime, basically everyone has agreed that industrial growth and manufacturing as an abstract concept is Good (TM) but definitely not in my backyard. For a long time these kinds of things were just being built in neighborhoods where the residents were too poor/politically disconnected to organize, but eventually that too became difficult.

Since automation became big in industrial processes, most industrial development has been labor-poor (few workers) but continues to be land intensive. That means while industry might generate tax revenue, it doesn't have a coalition of labor advocates willing to champion the capacity because not many jobs are created. So we find ourselves in 2026 with an inability to actually build new industrial capacity in any form. The anti-tech crowd is angry at the data centers, but the same exact thing is happening when it comes to permitting new power generation and transmission lines. In fact many of the concerns related to data center power usage could be allayed if we had more power generation but nobody wants power generation in their backyard.

For decades now the US has been dancing around the idea that there is no by-right way to build anything anymore, so building any new large structure becomes a collective action problem that just ends up failing. Even when things get built, costs are massive. This has even affected things that the US is ostensibly really good at making such as highways, as evident in the recent Texas highway expansions ongoing.

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#43

Post by nancyminusone » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

Sol- wrote: post #23

The less NIMBYs are involved or aware of any infrastructure project, the better. Is that even a question? They ruined enough opportunities and wealth in the last decades.

I don't recall anyone in my town being overly angry when fiber internet dug up their front yards.

But the datacenter they couldn't stop has made national news multiple times.

Also, what wealth? "Please allow me to exploit your land for little benefit to you" isn't a great selling point.

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#44

Post by cute_boi » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #11

One reason is that politicians have vilified them for their own political means. Creating false narratives like they use huge amounts of water, when in fact the cooling is a closed loop system and use less water than a single busy restaurant. They are being used as yet another pawn piece to push inequity and climate change agendas. It’s been quite a successful strategy.

Data Center, right now, have more negative impact. So, lets not dismiss that.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/13/elon-mus...

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#45

Post by Our_Benefactors » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

konmok wrote: post #22

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> datacenters use a TON of water and electricity We have a shortage of neither.

Who is "we"?? Some places do have water shortages. And regardless of whether the power goes out or not, more power consumption = higher prices + more pollution.

We the people.

In places where there are significant water shortages, water hungry data centers are not being built.

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#46

Post by pmdr » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:58 PM UTC

njovin wrote: post #12

Not covered in the article are two critical reasons: 1. They're breaking environmental laws in order to meet power demands. xAI has already been busted on this [1], but they keep finding willing accomplices in rural parts of the country to bypass public opposition or speedrun through regulatory exceptions [2]. 2. Companies seem to be fudging their numbers when it comes to GPU capacity & current workloads [3], likely…

> I know Ed Zitron is a divisive figure

The main counterarguments to his claims are "but Sam/Dario/Satya/Jensen said X" and that we should treat them as gospel.

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#47

Post by blanched » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:58 PM UTC

atleastoptimal wrote: post #16

What is the advantage to not keeping them a secret? The populist movement against AI is growing rapidly, and is supported by bunk science which affirms people's pre-existing biases (like the idea that data centers suck up all the water in a community, or raise the ambient temperature by a single-double digit number of degrees F). AI is a genuine source of economic growth. I can understand wanting to curtail it, but i…

Why are they bunk science? I’m not an environmental expert, but the research papers and policies I’ve read don’t seem to be egregiously wrong.

I’m asking genuinely, I’m open to changing my mind here.

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#48

Post by jeffbee » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:58 PM UTC

konmok wrote: post #15

jeffbee wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centers use very little water, right down to none if they want. And state-of-the-art hyperscale data centers really are operated by AIs.

Source on that water claim? Everything I've seen suggests the opposite.

Most people who believe that data centers use a lot of water aren't mislead about how much water data centers use, but they are unaware of how much water everything else uses. In the great scheme of things data centers simply do not evaporate that much water. They are too small and too few. As a comparative example, all the data centers in Arizona combined use less than 1/50th of the water evaporated by Arizona's own thermal power stations. Or, to choose another benchmark, the evapotranspiration of the rice crop in California is more than 250x the water used by data centers in California.

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#49

Post by Our_Benefactors » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:59 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #19

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> datacenters use a TON of water and electricity We have a shortage of neither.

Things would go over better with communities if they had assurances with regard to local impact and if those were violated they’d have recourse. Also would help if they provided some token compensation (like the Alaska fund). It wouldn’t be much but it’d be something and most people would probably take that.

This is give an inch take a mile type thinking. The arguments against data centers are based in emotion not reason, so it’s effectively a fools errand to try and placate them.

Re: If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?

#50

Post by chasd00 » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 5:59 PM UTC

They’re not built in secret, it’s just no one cared until now. How come no one cared when AWS and the other big cloud providers were building out all that infrastructure? Some one should put together a map of all data centers (not just “ai” datacenters), current and planned, complete with power and water consumption. oh the humanity!