I find it strange how data centers are getting (sorta) vilified. I keep hearing stories on NPR that are kinda subtle fear-mongering. Like data centers are probably the least bad thing to build nearby. They take in power and produce computer. No pollution, no traffic, no chemicals or potential explosions. They do take power. But, like, we know how to generate electricity. And solar is getting really cheap.
Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
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Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#82I find it strange how data centers are getting (sorta) vilified. I keep hearing stories on NPR that are kinda subtle fear-mongering. Like data centers are probably the least bad thing to build nearby. They take in power and produce computer. No pollution, no traffic, no chemicals or potential explosions. They do take power. But, like, we know how to generate electricity. And solar is getting really cheap.
My understanding is that they use up a lot of water and electricity, driving costs up for local residents.
Datacenters are asking for tax breaks because they "contribute back to the local economy". In most cases however, the added jobs are mostly temporary (construction)
In short, they're asking residents to pay for some short-term jobs and long-term utility price increases. A bad deal if you ask me
Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a scary argument. Should we also ban car emissions/safety testing, because Volvo's competitors might discern something from the results? Should we also stop FCC certification because competitors might glean information out of a device's radio characteristics? The local residents, if not the public at large, should have a right to know. If not, then it should go both ways and grocery stores shouldn't be allowe…
It’s definitely a result of the money at play, which is unprecedented in scale and (imo) speculation. But this is, in theory, why we have laws: to fight power imbalances, and money is of course power. Tough for me to be optimistic about law and order right now though, especially when it comes to the president’s biggest donors and the vice president’s handlers.
the building of the American Railroads were the largest capital endeavor in known history IIR. .. and Stanford was in the center of that, too
Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do data centers in space actually make sense? No. It's currently a fantasy. Even if the cost of getting payloads to orbit decreased another x100, you still have the issues of radiation and heat dissipation.
this will age poorly. you have both Google, Tesla/X betting on it. They are not stupid and probably have given it way more thought than people's whose paycheques not tied to this have thought about. This is an ambitious bet, with some possibility of failure but it should say a lot that these companies are investing in them. I wonder what people think, are these companies so naive? Edit: Elon, Sundar, Jensen, Jeff are…
Google is hardly betting on it; they are exploring the feasibility of it and are frank about the engineering challenges:
> significant engineering challenges remain, such as thermal management, high-bandwidth ground communications, and on-orbit system reliability.[1]
[1] https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalabl...
Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do data centers in space actually make sense? No. It's currently a fantasy. Even if the cost of getting payloads to orbit decreased another x100, you still have the issues of radiation and heat dissipation.
this will age poorly. you have both Google, Tesla/X betting on it. They are not stupid and probably have given it way more thought than people's whose paycheques not tied to this have thought about. This is an ambitious bet, with some possibility of failure but it should say a lot that these companies are investing in them. I wonder what people think, are these companies so naive? Edit: Elon, Sundar, Jensen, Jeff are…
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Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#86I'd like to hear the argument for why this is needed. I can imagine a number of reasons, but this is all I found in the article: > If I’m a company considering making strategic investments... I don’t want my competition to know where I’m going, what I’m doing, what pace I’m doing it at... You want to make sure everything is buttoned up and bow tied before that type of information is put into the public realm. I'm hav…
Data centers raise electricity bills and use too much ground water. Due to the AI bubble more data centers need to be built in areas that cannot support these facilities, deregulation, investor and political pressure ensures this, i.e. corruption. The last remaining spots are near residential areas. So people are pissed because of: * noise pollution, infrasound from HVAC travelling long distances making people sick *…
> use too much ground water
Data centers use little water. Less than using the same land for anything involving agriculture, for example.
The idea that a data center uses too much water is recently invented propaganda that is readily verifiable as fiction. Cui bono?
Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#87There is an obvious question I don't see anyone asking. Why do these data centers have to be built in every state? I guarantee it's not to run LLMs.
The reason likely here is water. It was the same with foxcon. They want access to Lake Michigan.
I have a feeling the Great Lakes Compact members will have something to say about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact
Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#88NIMBY for data centers is opportunity for SpaceX. When they saturate the demand for communication, data processing demand will be ramping up with no apparent ceiling. The merger between SpaceX and xAI positions them to benefit both from the AI revolution, and from the resistance to it. It's like a hypothetical 19th century textile company that managed to profit from Luddite riots by using them to help move production…
Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a container ship, convert it to a data center and connect it to a bunch of floating panels?
Most systems use fresh water for cooling. Salt water can corrode pipes and deposit sediment, but maybe there's a way to use ocean water efficiently.
They also need to be powered and connected to a network, but that seems like an easier problem.
Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Data centers don't create local jobs once construction is complete. 40 people, most remote, can run a data center. The F-35 program claims to have over 250,000 people employed in its supply chain in the US and has large factories with high paying, often unionised jobs.
I hear that argument, but a relative has been an elecrtrician that started out working mostly at the original facebook datacenter in 2016 or so. he now owns the business, and his single biggest client is still the facebook datacenter. Constant additions, reconfigurations, etc.
Should still be orders different from a the continuous labor intensive manufacturing of F35's
Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers
#90I find it strange how data centers are getting (sorta) vilified. I keep hearing stories on NPR that are kinda subtle fear-mongering. Like data centers are probably the least bad thing to build nearby. They take in power and produce computer. No pollution, no traffic, no chemicals or potential explosions. They do take power. But, like, we know how to generate electricity. And solar is getting really cheap.
You talk about how solar is getting really cheap but electricity costs are actually rising significantly for most people I know (I've had to help friends pay electricity bills recently). I don't know how much of this is data centers but electricity prices are a major worry for a lot of normal people and you can't just handwave it away with "we know how to generate electricity" (there are also other worries like water usage in some areas). I don't hate data centers but the hate for them is based on them seeming to exacerbate what's already a serious worry to people already struggling to afford electricity.