The war on data centres is a bit fake(economist.com) |
The war on data centres is a bit fake(economist.com) |
For comparison the world's current AI data center capacity is ~20 GW.
474GW is an awful lot. I'm kind of pro AI but you don't want to overdo it.
By the way re the power, our Hinkley Point C nuclear power station started construction in 2017, may be done about 2030, costs £48bn and should produce 3.2 GW one day. 474GW is a lot.
Personally I've been more affected by excessive hot weather recently than any AI shortage. Not sure 100s of GW of gas turbines is a good idea environmentally.
the war FOR data centers is very real.It is backed by single largest money spend of all time, and money at this scale is war. War for resources, war to be first, war to be best, etc.
Now if the articles take was that the war for data centers got going hard and fast before people figured out that dont like it, and are massivly out gunned and out manouvered from the begining, then sure, thats obvious, but people are bringing guiloteens as symbols of there dislike, and the general attitude is hey!cool hardware!!, fire it up lets hear the ziiiiiing ,thwonk sound.
Only like this we can stop this hype insanity, prevent more damae and maybe even find some useful aspects hidden behind the endless hype.
I've seen some articles on some data centres that were very loud because of gas turbines, but realistically, what percentage is that? Surely, I would assume it must be a minority, and it just seems like the state failing to actually follow reasonable laws around noise levels.
The US getting better power infrastructure and more energy seems like a long-term good thing. They've underinvested in it for a long time.
And they're often noisy transportable units because they can claim it's a temporary setup and skirt some of the permits.
There's honest to goodness people who think we shouldn't disturb space rocks, because they will no longer be in their pristine natural state.
The thing is it's not the data centers that are actually the issue. It's the power.
Gas turbines are loud! And look at the news--many incidents of it being even louder than they had permits for.
And the reality is politicians never make new development bear the utility infrastructure cost of the development. Development ends up raising costs for the people already living there.
A gas turbine isn't a normal part of a data center operations, and the only reason the need them is when NIMBYists make it difficult to get enough stable power to keep critical infrastructure running.
If you look at the outlandish claims of either side in any detail, it's hard to imagine anyone would fall for them. But here we are.
Same here. Techies like to say that data centers have always existed, so people must not be objecting to data centers, it must be something else, something nefarious. People don't object to the floors AWS has in some random office building that looks like every other building. Because those were built with planning by corporations usually seeking their own long-term sustainable self interest. If there were tax breaks given, it was usually during periods of economic growth.
Those aren't the kind of datacenters being pumped out and dropped onto communities today in this mad rush to win the new missile race with the new USSR. People are broke, we're in stagflation, none of these datacenters are bringing much of anything of value uniquely to the people who have to deal with their externalities. Even when they bring their own energy to not overload the grid and raise prices, it's usually an onsite literal jet engine powered by natural gas that screams as loud as, well, ever lived by an airport? Now imagine a low-flying plane exactly over your house, 24/7, forever.
I've had a "datacenter" in my apartment or house for decades. Usually it has been a minitower that runs pretty silently in a closet. I got my hands on a used rackserver with 128GB of DDR4 RAM, you know the kind that have fans as loud as a jet engine. Guess who didn't realize exactly how loud those are, even if they're in a closed closet? Or how much heat they generate, especially in the summer? Or exactly how much a sustained 500 watt load costs in California and how that will bump us over our baseline and into extra charges territory?
Yeah, I did to my family exactly what the data centers people are protesting did to those communities. Had I bought a Mac Studio (with even more compute) that sits in a cabinet, my wife would not have vetoed my data center. But I wanted to cut costs and didn't even think about the externalities, just about what I could do what that sweet sweet 128GB of DDR4.
As I've pointed out, time and time again, DCs are nothing new. DCs were, in previous eras, disguised and hidden in machine rooms and wiring closets in every single corporate HQ in every office park in all parts of our nation. There were lots of machine rooms when most services were on-prem and company-hosted.
The DC phenomenon is a consolidation and expansion of a prior phenomenon that was not so visible and rather difficult to fight, if you wanted to. Because every corporation could keep those machine rooms confidential, and they had a lot of leeway in what could be done with their owned or leased properties.
But now, as DCs pop up and externalize these machine rooms, they expose them directly to the public. Sometimes literally in their backyard. So they make noise, they don't create jobs, they suck resources, they don't pay a lot of taxes or even benefit from tax exemptions! There is very little to like, from an ordinary citizen's perspective. The tech sector can argue all they want. They're cooked, for now. Everything will be an uphill battle.
And note the second part of what I said--developers never bear the full cost of their infrastructure needs. Yeah, I'm going to oppose expanding a powerplant for AI, both because I don't want to pay for their generators and because I expect they will not be around, leaving us with the bill.
Pay *up front* for the expansion, I'm not going to object.