81–90 of 138 posts
When I read the headline I imagined a huge tent with steel beam structure and professional grade covers with HVAC and concrete footprint. Seems everyone else imagined a camping tent. Different backgrounds I guess.
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…
The difference between Meta and tesla is that meta has done it many times before and in loads of countries.
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 such a limiter on the ground that SpaceX is pursuing AI satellites in space What is your source for this claim? It sounds like conjecture to me. Neither power nor construction is easier in space than it is on Earth. Higher power means higher heat dissipation, which means higher-cost satellites or downsized AI hardware. Construction is monumentally more expensive when you have to ship GPUs and their associat…
Meta's first five buildings took between two and three years to build, but Williams is almost done building out 200 MW (additional) off-grid power plants in a year, and to match that they're putting their equipment in tents. That raises questions for me: * Did they expect the next five buildings to also take between two and three years to build if done in the same manner? I'd hope it'd be significantly faster the sec…
I would guess the real problem is contractors are bottle-necked in good times, but not stupid enough to expand - knowing that bad times will come and they have to pay for all the expansion. (humans can be laid off, but you still need to make the payment on the bulldozer)
The fact that these behemoths are being powered by gas generators is horrifying
How did you want to power them? You know the gas generators are the largest power generation source in the US right?
https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso
It might be a little more expensive for them, but it's cheaper when you factor in the costs of pollution which they aren't paying for and which they're forcing us to pay for through increased diseases and global warming.
The fact that these behemoths are being powered by gas generators is horrifying
The fact that these behemoths are being powered by gas generators is horrifying
It's not supposed to be permanent, but it also allows them to not waste time waiting on physical locations to be built. Given how highly competitive this all is, I'm not surprised at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your language is ambiguous — your horror is in reference to natural gas turbine generators (used at these installations) and not gasoline generators (like in a home context)? Why the horror? I'd prefer the gas remain in the ground, but given the gassy production of US shale oil, I guess I'd rather it be used for this than just flared. I am frustrated that pollutant emissions aren't being policed, and also that the su…
I'd prefer they use cheap and available renewables rather than accelerating climate change. But to each their own I guess. (And to head it off at the pass: if that can't be done then this should be done at all)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...
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.