5 ms·

I don't get the economics behind building AI DCs in the UK instead of a middle income country near the equator where there's plentiful solar or fossil fuels. L

I don't get the economics behind building AI DCs in the UK instead of a middle income country near the equator where there's plentiful solar or fossil fuels. Labor and land is expensive, energy is scarce and expensive, and colocation is not that valuable because latency is dominated by compute instead of transmission. But there must be a good reason I am missing.

vee-kay 8mo ago
[dead]
khy34 8mo ago
Country risk..
pjmlp 8mo ago
Sovereignty, the days of peaceful geopoltics are behind us.
- energy123 8mo ago
  That's a public good that occurs if the government puts their thumb on the scale with subsidies or regulations, because otherwise the market can't get there itself (example: TSMC building plants in US only because of government incentive). But the Nscale case looks like private investors deciding this is the most profitable place to build it on the margin, which is anomalous.
  - tosapple 8mo ago
    [dead]
justin66 8mo ago
Latency?
- doctorwho42 8mo ago
  Does that even really matter with AI? If you already are waiting >1sec for a response/output, what is 0.2 seconds more?
  - justin66 8mo ago
    I get what you're saying but do we really think the AI emanating from these data centers is always going to be limited to multisecond response times? More cynically, someone in the UK might want to do something that makes money with these data centers once the AI thing goes bust.
dijit 8mo ago
Huh, you think the equator is better for datacenters? I've never heard that. I mean, there's a reason Luleå is a popular datacenter spot: access to hydro & wind- but also "free cooling"; datacenters create a lot of heat and having a cold environment makes it easier to maintain ambient temperatures that are sustainable with lower energy consumption. Additionally, people tend to prefer their servers are in geopolitically stable countries that are less likely to be bombed or undergo civil war (and the US likes to ensure civil war in countries that have a lot of oil) - and you want your datacenters to avoid any environmental hazards like earthquakes. I can't imagine preferring the equator for datacenters.
- DaedalusII 8mo ago
  singapore/malaysia/indonesia one of the best places in the world for datacentres. just have to build absurd cooling systems and use coal power plants the bottleneck is they keep running out of water for cooling
  - dijit 8mo ago
    Singapore? They were among the worst (and most expensive) datacenters I've worked with, but they were used because we were latency sensitive (game servers). Haven't heard of anyone deploying to Indo/Malay though, maybe I missed something here.
mghackerlady 8mo ago
I'd imagine cooling? I could be wrong but a lot of the cost is there and putting what's effectively a megawatt scale electric heater certainly isn't going to make that any cheaper
crimsoneer 8mo ago
It's not actually building many datacenters there right? It's just incorporated there.
DaedalusII 8mo ago
good question, but there is a rational answer. remember if youre going to tie up a few billion in a project you want strong laws around ownership singapore ran out of land. malaysia ran out of water and electricity indonesia is unstable politically and just started confiscating foreign owned farms india is too politically risky. people will just steal your shit middle east - israel/iran chabad trump war etc. all within ballistic missile range, unstable africa is africa latin america no infrastructure (highways, power grid, etc) labor is other bottleneck. it actually borderline impossible to bring in skilled engineers and technical specialist to remote energy rich areas
- zozbot234 8mo ago
  > india is too politically risky. people will just steal your shit India is a huge place and some parts of it are vastly better managed than others. > latin america no infrastructure (highways, power grid, etc) The governance problem is quite real in Latin America actually, but I think it may have potential. If some infrastructure gets funded in the process it would have beneficial side effects all around.
  - DaedalusII 8mo ago
    cant fund infrastructure because that is when the bad governance results in money and asset being stolen rule of law why country like singapore and finland end up being richer than brazil or argentina
- figmert 8mo ago
  > africa is africa Jeez what a way to dismiss the second largest continent and the second most populous landmass in the world. I'd argue Africa is the best place to start such a thing. Cheap labour, plenty of renewable energy. The biggest issue it probably has is how little bandwidth it has, and might require additional sea cables. But "africa is africa" is not a way reason to dismiss the continent.
  - DaedalusII 8mo ago
    you have never worked in africa. its cheaper to build a data centre in low earth orbit than most of africa 1 physical security is a problem, and in some countries like equatorial guinea or south africa foreigners arent allowed to own assets outright 2 cheap labour cant actually do anything. they are nice people but they cant read instruction manuals. cant set up data centres 3 no infrastructure. why zambia and kenya etc are 99% cellphones, is because there is no grid and no landlines because people steal all the copper wires https://iol.co.za/the-star/news/2026-02-18-r23-billion-lost-inside-south-africas-electricity-theft-crisis/ https://iol.co.za/the-star/news/2026-02-18-r23-billion-lost-... stories engineers have told me about building things in africa: - i was working on an oil rig and one day the local employees started playing hide and seek and trying to kill us until a ransom was paid. for 48 hours we hid in a ventilation area until the ransom was organised, then had to go straight back to work with the people who were trying to murder us with power tools the day before for a month - the person who gave my company a contract was chainsawed to death on a beach

vee-kay 8mo ago

[dead]

khy34 8mo ago

Country risk..

pjmlp 8mo ago

Sovereignty, the days of peaceful geopoltics are behind us.

energy123 8mo ago
That's a public good that occurs if the government puts their thumb on the scale with subsidies or regulations, because otherwise the market can't get there itself (example: TSMC building plants in US only because of government incentive). But the Nscale case looks like private investors deciding this is the most profitable place to build it on the margin, which is anomalous.
- tosapple 8mo ago
  [dead]

justin66 8mo ago

Latency?

doctorwho42 8mo ago
Does that even really matter with AI? If you already are waiting >1sec for a response/output, what is 0.2 seconds more?
- justin66 8mo ago
  I get what you're saying but do we really think the AI emanating from these data centers is always going to be limited to multisecond response times? More cynically, someone in the UK might want to do something that makes money with these data centers once the AI thing goes bust.

dijit 8mo ago

Huh, you think the equator is better for datacenters? I've never heard that. I mean, there's a reason Luleå is a popular datacenter spot: access to hydro & wind- but also "free cooling"; datacenters create a lot of heat and having a cold environment makes it easier to maintain ambient temperatures that are sustainable with lower energy consumption. Additionally, people tend to prefer their servers are in geopolitically stable countries that are less likely to be bombed or undergo civil war (and the US likes to ensure civil war in countries that have a lot of oil) - and you want your datacenters to avoid any environmental hazards like earthquakes. I can't imagine preferring the equator for datacenters.

DaedalusII 8mo ago
singapore/malaysia/indonesia one of the best places in the world for datacentres. just have to build absurd cooling systems and use coal power plants the bottleneck is they keep running out of water for cooling
- dijit 8mo ago
  Singapore? They were among the worst (and most expensive) datacenters I've worked with, but they were used because we were latency sensitive (game servers). Haven't heard of anyone deploying to Indo/Malay though, maybe I missed something here.

mghackerlady 8mo ago

I'd imagine cooling? I could be wrong but a lot of the cost is there and putting what's effectively a megawatt scale electric heater certainly isn't going to make that any cheaper

crimsoneer 8mo ago

It's not actually building many datacenters there right? It's just incorporated there.

DaedalusII 8mo ago

good question, but there is a rational answer. remember if youre going to tie up a few billion in a project you want strong laws around ownership singapore ran out of land. malaysia ran out of water and electricity indonesia is unstable politically and just started confiscating foreign owned farms india is too politically risky. people will just steal your shit middle east - israel/iran chabad trump war etc. all within ballistic missile range, unstable africa is africa latin america no infrastructure (highways, power grid, etc) labor is other bottleneck. it actually borderline impossible to bring in skilled engineers and technical specialist to remote energy rich areas

zozbot234 8mo ago
> india is too politically risky. people will just steal your shit India is a huge place and some parts of it are vastly better managed than others. > latin america no infrastructure (highways, power grid, etc) The governance problem is quite real in Latin America actually, but I think it may have potential. If some infrastructure gets funded in the process it would have beneficial side effects all around.
- DaedalusII 8mo ago
  cant fund infrastructure because that is when the bad governance results in money and asset being stolen rule of law why country like singapore and finland end up being richer than brazil or argentina
figmert 8mo ago
> africa is africa Jeez what a way to dismiss the second largest continent and the second most populous landmass in the world. I'd argue Africa is the best place to start such a thing. Cheap labour, plenty of renewable energy. The biggest issue it probably has is how little bandwidth it has, and might require additional sea cables. But "africa is africa" is not a way reason to dismiss the continent.
- DaedalusII 8mo ago
  you have never worked in africa. its cheaper to build a data centre in low earth orbit than most of africa 1 physical security is a problem, and in some countries like equatorial guinea or south africa foreigners arent allowed to own assets outright 2 cheap labour cant actually do anything. they are nice people but they cant read instruction manuals. cant set up data centres 3 no infrastructure. why zambia and kenya etc are 99% cellphones, is because there is no grid and no landlines because people steal all the copper wires https://iol.co.za/the-star/news/2026-02-18-r23-billion-lost-inside-south-africas-electricity-theft-crisis/ https://iol.co.za/the-star/news/2026-02-18-r23-billion-lost-... stories engineers have told me about building things in africa: - i was working on an oil rig and one day the local employees started playing hide and seek and trying to kill us until a ransom was paid. for 48 hours we hid in a ventilation area until the ransom was organised, then had to go straight back to work with the people who were trying to murder us with power tools the day before for a month - the person who gave my company a contract was chainsawed to death on a beach