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

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

#91

Post by konmok »

nodesocket wrote: post #85
mrexroad wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 My understanding was that often multiple cooling methods are employed and the ratio of use shifts seasonally; however, that evaporative cooling was still primary method, especially in hotter climates like CA and AZ. Can you help me understand what type of d…

Microsoft CEO Nadella just recently said their Fairwater (315-acre facility in Wisconsin) only uses around the same amount of water as a single restaurant over the course of an entire year.

That is not a reliable source at all.

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

#92

Post by nonethewiser »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #83
nonethewiser wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Regarding water usage, in general data centers do not use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing Are the claims really that "Data centers use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing"? I dont think so. Even if thats true, that doesn't mean they cant have a disastrous effect on the local water supply. This isnt a good rebuttal. Frankly I tend to think the anti-datacenter crowd is overreacting. B…

Data centers do use water, and a lot of it, but the claims being made are hyperbolic and not squared with reality. One criticism I often see is that data centers somehow pollute the local water supply. Data centers use water in a closed loop, their impact on local water quality is negligible. Industrial manufacturing and even agriculture have a far greater deleterious effect. > The EPA’s national assessments repeated…

>One criticism I often see is that data centers somehow pollute the local water supply.

Yes, I think this one is completely misinformed. For example AOC held up some dirty water from a local resident's tap. Fine, that's bad. But it was a result of digging during the construction process and the fact that it was a data center was irrelevant. And the implication that it permanently ruined local's water supply was just wrong.

>The thing is, AI data centers bring in far more tax revenue than other water-guzzling domains (like golf courses), but use less water overall. Extreme panic over specifically their water use is disproportionate

I guess that's not surprising to hear. A lot of people against data centers are probably also against golf courses though. I think AI is valuable but a lot of opponents see it as a net negative. Not saying they are right - this is definitely a point against the anti datacenter crowd. But it is consistent from their perspective so I dont think this point will persuade them. Would need to attack the claim that AI is a net negative.

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

#93

Post by Ancapistani »

klodolph wrote: post #33
zeafoamrun wrote: post #5

To stop assholes from bombing them

When I’ve visited the big data centers, they had gates and security relatively far out from the buildings. How would you get close enough? It’s not like the World Trade Center in 1993 where you can just drive up next to the building. (It’s also not like the World Trade Center in 2026 where there is an anti-terrorism perimeter of steel-reinforced concrete bollards, but somewhere in the middle.) Of course there are als…

Rather than going into detail, getting myself on yet another watchlist, and possibly inspiring someone to do something both criminal and counter-productive, I'll just quote Patton:

    Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.

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

#94

Post by nonethewiser »

chickenpotpie wrote: post #87
nonethewiser wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many technicians? And from where? Its unclear to me how often this stuff actually needs to be done. And how resilient the overall system is to failure. Is it imperative to swap out one point of failure immediately or can you let them batch up and send Joe from California out qaurterly?

Technicians are constantly behind in work. Many data centers are pulling 24/7/365 shifts to keep up with demand. Larger data centers have hundreds of full time employees. Yes many servers are left in fail over states for long periods of time, but that can only be done because new capacity is actively being deployed to make up for that fail over. Modern data centers are far too big for a single person to be repairing…

Thanks for the info. So the technicians are there on site daily? dozens? hundreds?

Im not too surprised there is quite a bit to replace. Sure the failure rate should be low but the scale is massive. Its interesting to get an order of magnitude though. Every hour is more frequent than I thought.

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

#95

Post by mcphage »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #83
nonethewiser wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Regarding water usage, in general data centers do not use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing Are the claims really that "Data centers use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing"? I dont think so. Even if thats true, that doesn't mean they cant have a disastrous effect on the local water supply. This isnt a good rebuttal. Frankly I tend to think the anti-datacenter crowd is overreacting. B…

Data centers do use water, and a lot of it, but the claims being made are hyperbolic and not squared with reality. One criticism I often see is that data centers somehow pollute the local water supply. Data centers use water in a closed loop, their impact on local water quality is negligible. Industrial manufacturing and even agriculture have a far greater deleterious effect. > The EPA’s national assessments repeated…

> This means that in 2023, AI data centers used as much water as the lifestyles of 25,000 Americans, 0.007% of the population. By 2030, they might use as much as the lifestyles of 250,000 Americans, 0.07% of the population.

A 10x increase in AI data center buildout between 2023 and 2030 seems unlikely, given the large number of AI data centers either in progress, or in the planning stages.

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

#96

Post by jeffbee »

Uncle_Brumpus wrote: post #80
jeffbee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think also to a degree, even if someone knows those other water use figures, it's easy to see an intrinsic value to the community from those sources. Many people do not see much value in pushing AI to such a degree where all this new compute is required, and others see a negative impact from this activity. It's much easier to argue against something you feel is wrong or bad than something that is arguably crucial f…

Of course. The American consumer is the greatest hypocrite of all time. Their cars, fuel, airline travel, hamburgers, and paper goods are beyond reproach. Your matrix multiplication is an abomination.

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

#97

Post by 201984 »

jeffbee wrote: post #28
201984 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. Evaporative cooling systems consume significant amounts of water and do not reuse it. They can't anyway, recondensing the water would release all the heat they removed by evaporating it.

You don't have to evaporatively cool a data center. You can make a direct trade between energy efficiency and water consumption.

You don't HAVE to, but most of the big ones do.

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

#98

Post by tekla »

konmok wrote: post #63
tekla wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You believe lies, 99% of data shows that data centers do not use appreciable amounts of water compared to almond farms, or gold courses, or bog standard lawns. https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/data-centers-less-wa...

That source says data centers use a lot of water. Less than all almond farms combined, sure, but it doesn't support the parent argument. It's also 3 years out of date, and not relevant to protests against all the data centers that have not yet been completed.

Present your own data

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

#99

Post by tekla »

tunesmith wrote: post #57
tekla wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You believe lies, 99% of data shows that data centers do not use appreciable amounts of water compared to almond farms, or gold courses, or bog standard lawns. https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/data-centers-less-wa...

compared to almond farms ? You phrase that as if almond farms use a reasonable amount of water.

Present your own data

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

#100

Post by kys11 »

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…

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