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Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

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Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#61

Post by sorieus »

These datacenters have been under construction since at least June of 2025. You can see 1 building was already up in 2025 and the land was just farmland back in 9/13/2024. So this construction has been over 1 year in the making. Does this mean its construction slop? For reference colossus xAI datacenter was up and running in less than 7 months. I couldn't tell you at what capacity but this doesn't seem like quite the same story.

Edit For a little more context xAI colossus 2 looks to be an empty warehouse on 3/10/2025. By 12/2025 they had already either filled the warehouse or they couldn't use the space because they appear to built multiple structures outside for the datacenter.

For comparison again meta already had that datacenter there for a number of years and then over 2 years added those structures. In 9 months it appears Tesla built a datacenter into an existing building and added structures.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#62

Post by zeafoamrun »

emsign wrote: post #47
arjie wrote: post #34

The whole thing is like a video game: your construction and power are your limiting factors. We need to CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS and so on. It's interesting that this is such a limiter on the ground that SpaceX is pursuing AI satellites in space. Truly an incredible time to be alive.

This is not a video game.

It's literally factorio

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#63

Post by Karrot_Kream »

emsign wrote: post #45
bethekidyouwant wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you want to power them? You know the gas generators are the largest power generation source in the US right?

How about not powering them at all.

And what happens when something you politically approve of needs power?

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#64

Post by john_strinlai »

unknownfuture wrote: post #56
john_strinlai wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are polls where a sample of people say they hate ai. on the other hand, there are a billion+ weekly active users. from a business perspective, which of those two statistics would you give more weight?

This is basically an argument about revealed preference, and these things are always more complicated than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference

revealed preference theory is typically applied to individuals or single decision-making units like a household, rather than worldwide aggregate market behavior.

in any case, its not really that complicated in this case.

- the ai companies have a billion active users and billions of dollars in revenue.

- a poll comes back with 30% of respondents saying they are angry about ai.

so, why do the ai companies keep doing ai things despite ~30% of people not liking ai? well, its because they are making billions of dollars in revenue from their billion users. from the ai company's perspective, it would be madness not to keep shoving ai everywhere.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#66

Post by WarmWash »

arjie wrote: post #34

The whole thing is like a video game: your construction and power are your limiting factors. We need to CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS and so on. It's interesting that this is such a limiter on the ground that SpaceX is pursuing AI satellites in space. Truly an incredible time to be alive.

The only thing SpaceX is pursuing is dumb money.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#67

Post by righthand »

warkdarrior wrote: post #44
righthand wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a billion active users != number of US citizens that take on the burden of AI. So go build your AI on land where your customers are if they like it so much.

ChatGPT has 112M monthly active users in US, https://searchlab.nl/en/statistics/chatgpt-statistics-2026#g... Is is OK for them to build datacenters in US?

Yeah in the states where the majority of people approve. But we already know the data centers aren’t being built in those areas. They’re being enforced on people who for the most part dont approve of their intent.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#68

Post by akomtu »

luk212 wrote: post #58

So AI infrastructure buildout is starting to feel a lot like emergency industrial mobilization... Also, building rapid temp shells plus nearby gas turbines paints a very different picture than the one conveyed by the "clean-energy" PR around hyperscale data centers.

This is what happens when people with big money succumb to AI psychosis.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#69

Post by graveemaster »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #63
emsign wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about not powering them at all.

And what happens when something you politically approve of needs power?

How about being transparent when we ask the residents what they want. If this hypothetical scenario you fear comes to fruition, maybe instead of back door deals/misinformation/straight up lying for hype, we publicly ask the people who have to suffer the consequences of our political desires.

Sounds civil to me.

Re: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents

#70

Post by Theodores »

FerretFred wrote: post #26

As always, there are some very erudite comments here on HN, which is why I like the site so much. My erudite comment, or rather question, is this: why aren't these people using AI to solve all these problems? Surely it would be a good test of The Product and maybe it would give s[ck]eptics some food for thought?

Why not ask someone that can do astrology to do your stock picks and sports bets for you?

You know and I know that The Product is at best nowt more than 'astrology'. The Product does do search engine things though, and it could be scaled down to fit in a phone or even a watch, to be good enough for 'the pub quiz' or for writing a gormless email.

As for the article, META does very little for the vastness of the corporation. They have gazillions of developers yet Facebook and Instagram are as boring as ever, Threads and the Metaverse are just lame and what else do they do, apart from serve ads?

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