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If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?
- Our_Benefactors 4mo agoThis is the top comment: “ And ask if AI is so great why hasn’t it designed resource efficient data centers? And ask what the data centers are actually doing. Bitcoin mining, anyone?” Says all you need to know about the competency level of this position, which is ideological and not fact-based
- tw04 4mo agoBut it’s not just ideological. The facts are, even with great strides in efficiency, datacenters use a TON of water and electricity. And without fail that results in increased prices for the local communities who see almost no benefit from these datacenters. Ironically the very same people profiting most off of them are the ones saying they’re going to leave the country if they’re forced to pay anything resembling a fair tax rate. They’re always all about socializing costs and privatizing profits and the common folks are finally waking up to it.
- jeffbee 4mo agoData centers use very little water, right down to none if they want. And state-of-the-art hyperscale data centers really are operated by AIs.
- konmok 4mo agoSource on that water claim? Everything I've seen suggests the opposite.
- tekla 4mo agoYou 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-water-almond-134521708.html https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/data-centers-less-wa...
- tunesmith 4mo agocompared to almond farms? You phrase that as if almond farms use a reasonable amount of water.
- tekla 4mo agoPresent your own data
- LevGoldstein 4mo agoNot OP, but here's a link from one of the previous times this was discussed. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts-crazy-stats-charts/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts... Almond farming uses massive amounts of water, which has caused environmental impact concerns in the past.
- konmok 4mo agoThat 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 It's also 3 years out of date, and not relevant to protests against all the data centers that have not yet been completed.
- tekla 4mo agoPresent your own data
- Silamoth 4mo agoYou say that like environmentalists support those things. We don’t. We regularly criticize golf courses as a waste of water and land. We regularly call out the water waste and ecosystem impact of manicured, uniform lawns.
- jeffbee 4mo agoMost 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 thermal power stations. Or, to choose another benchmark, the evapotranspiration of the rice crop in California is more than 250x the water used by data centers in California.
- Uncle_Brumpus 4mo agoI 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 for day-to-day life like electricity and staple crops.
- jeffbee 4mo agoOf 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.
- 201984 4mo agoThis 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.
- jeffbee 4mo agoYou don't have to evaporatively cool a data center. You can make a direct trade between energy efficiency and water consumption.
- palmotea 4mo ago> Data centers use very little water, right down to none if they want. And state-of-the-art hyperscale data centers really are operated by AIs. There are many, many reasons to oppose datacenters. Not the least is they're there to drive inequality to ever-greater heights and they're 21st century version of the toxic waste dump (put 'em where people are weak and marginalized). But water use is a very simple argument, and sometimes you have to pound on those to get through to the general public that's not immediately affected.
- bpodgursky 4mo agoSorry but no, you don't get to lie just because your arguments don't resonate with the public. That makes you a bad person.
- palmotea 4mo ago> Sorry but no, you don't get to lie just because your arguments don't resonate with the public. That makes you a bad person. You misunderstand: data centers usually do use a lot of water, and I think the lie is "data centers use very little water." I believe it's possible for them to use little, but that's a choice that costs money. What I mean was instead of arguing the nuances of cooling or a particular project (which probably keeps all the details secret anyway), it makes sense to simplify and emphasize the water use angle.
- Our_Benefactors 4mo ago> datacenters use a TON of water and electricity We have a shortage of neither.
- mc32 4mo agoThings would go over better with communities if they had assurances with regard to local impact and if those were violated they’d have recourse. Also would help if they provided some token compensation (like the Alaska fund). It wouldn’t be much but it’d be something and most people would probably take that.
- Our_Benefactors 4mo agoThis is give an inch take a mile type thinking. The arguments against data centers are based in emotion not reason, so it’s effectively a fools errand to try and placate them.
- konmok 4mo agoWho is "we"?? Some places do have water shortages. And regardless of whether the power goes out or not, more power consumption = higher prices + more pollution.
- Our_Benefactors 4mo agoWe the people. In places where there are significant water shortages, water hungry data centers are not being built.
- konmok 4mo agoIncorrect. Seems like you haven't really investigated this topic at all. https://www.newsweek.com/map-data-centers-built-drought-hit-areas-11997520 https://www.newsweek.com/map-data-centers-built-drought-hit-...
- Silamoth 4mo agoMuch of the US is in a drought. While we can generate plenty of electricity, doing so with outdated fossils fuels and ‘natural gases’ introduces a lot of pollution that harms people and the environment. We need to be careful about making these decisions. But that’s really the problem - “we” don’t get any say in these decisions. A bunch of corrupt politicians and rich oligarchs make these decisions that screw over the rest of us. And yes, for the record, I’m not uniquely against “AI” data centers. I’m opposed to a lot of other environmentally harmful and wasteful developments. They don’t get hyped up like “AI” does, though.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- cucumber3732842 4mo agoThey're being built in as much secret as possible because everything is. Everything about land development is adversarial and the people who keep their mouths shut wind up taking fewer 4-7 figure screwings along the way than the honest people. It sucks that this how it is but even just the most casual familiarity with all the rules and processes makes it obvious why this is the way it is. You could find more than enough data points to write this same story about grocery stores or anything else.
- metalliqaz 4mo agogrocery stores? They are not comparable to data centers.
- TulliusCicero 4mo agoThey aren't, and yet somehow you still find various groups who will fight them. Seattle is currently dealing with this for a new WinCo -- which is low-priced and employee-owned, making it particularly unobjectionable -- on a site that used to be a Sam's Club, so it's not even really a new development: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/winco-plan-for-seattle-store-hits-roadblock/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/winco-plan... > North Seattle shoppers may need to wait even longer for a grocery store to fill a former Sam’s Club location left vacant since 2018 > Two years ago, discount grocery chain WinCo filed plans to remodel the building and reconfigure the parking lot on Aurora Avenue North. But the plans encountered opposition from a neighborhood group for their possible environmental impact. > Last week, a hearing examiner overturned the city’s determination that the project would have no significant environmental impacts, casting doubts on the future of the project. > ... > For a while, everything seemed on track. The city conducted a State Environmental Policy Act process and found WinCo’s plans would have no significant environmental impact. > Then, last fall, a coalition called Lake Washington Working Families appealed the decision. The group, which tried and failed to disrupt plans for a WinCo coming to Renton last spring, has no website and is not registered with the state — leading to online speculation about who exactly is behind the group. But Karl Anuta, a Portland-based lawyer representing the coalition, said it’s made up of King County residents. > The coalition claimed the city’s environmental analysis of WinCo’s plans for the North Seattle site was inadequate and required further review. WinCo would have major traffic impacts, the appeal said, releasing pollutants into local bodies of water. > In an interview Monday, Anuta, who primarily handles cases involving environmental law, said the group is not against having a WinCo store at the location but wants the city to seriously analyze the environmental impacts of such a large business. > “The real issue for the Lake Washington Working Families was you’re going from eight years of nothing there to a larger facility with many impacts,” he said. > “You can’t just permit stuff and expect the neighbors to deal with the consequences.” This is why environmental regulations and processes are getting pushback -- not because people hate the environment, but because NIMBYs learned to weaponize these rules against almost any kind of development, even the kind of thing that the overwhelming majority of people in an area support.
- zeafoamrun 4mo agoTo stop assholes from bombing them
- metalliqaz 4mo agoThe secrets are kept prior to breaking ground. After that everyone knows what it is.
- amarcheschi 4mo agoWe didn't have known datacenters bombed till now I mean yes, Amazon servers in the middle east aren't doing great, but I guess it's not what you're talking about
- zeafoamrun 4mo agoIt was included in what I was talking about. Why would you publicise something that just paints a big target.
- klodolph 4mo agoWhen 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 also data centers in the middle of cities but these are smaller.
- nancyminusone 4mo agoTrebuchet
- Ancapistani 4mo agoRather 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.
- aaroninsf 4mo agoThe conflation of concerns and synechdochal arguments are a wonder to behold.
- SKILNER 4mo agoSo many people flailing around to justify their feelings rather than thinking rationally.
- expedition32 4mo agoGoes both sides. Anyone who works in tech is immediately circumspect when they defend AI data centers. Hell I will always side with locals WHO ACTUALLY LIVE THERE than IT workers in their Google cubicles lmao. Ofcourse America in it's dystopian wisdom is now making corporations vote...
- nodesocket 4mo agoOne reason is that politicians have vilified them for their own political means. 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. They are being used as yet another pawn piece to push inequity and climate change agendas. It’s been quite a successful strategy.
- homeonthemtn 4mo agoSo successful that data centers are everywhere? I'm not following the logic here.
- nodesocket 4mo ago25 data center projects were canceled in 2025, up sharply from only 6 in 2024. 2026 numbers gonna be dramatically higher. 69 jurisdictions have enacted some form of moratorium, ban, or restriction on new data center construction. The friendly states such as Texas are just going to have all the data centers and thus reap all the financial and job benefits.
- homeonthemtn 4mo agoI think you're being single minded about the reason people don't want them. Not everyone is hungry for giant construction projects regardless of the "jobs gain"
- cute_boi 4mo agoData Center, right now, have more negative impact. So, lets not dismiss that. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/13/elon-musk-xai-datacenters-air-pollution-mississippi https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/13/elon-mus...
- mrexroad 4mo ago> 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 data center (size, location, etc) uses less water than a busy restaurant?
- njovin 4mo agoNot covered in the article are two critical reasons: 1. They're breaking environmental laws in order to meet power demands. xAI has already been busted on this [1], but they keep finding willing accomplices in rural parts of the country to bypass public opposition or speedrun through regulatory exceptions [2]. 2. Companies seem to be fudging their numbers when it comes to GPU capacity & current workloads [3], likely to inflate their IPO valuations. I know Ed Zitron is a divisive figure but I've not seen any journalist on the other side of the argument provide the volume of data that he has. [1] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-to-power-its-data-center/ https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/musks-xai-draws-more-opposition-over-mississippi-power-plant-permit.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/musks-xai-draws-more-opposit... [3] https://www.wheresyoured.at/where-are-all-the-data-centers/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/where-are-all-the-data-centers/
- pmdr 4mo ago> I know Ed Zitron is a divisive figure The main counterarguments to his claims are "but Sam/Dario/Satya/Jensen said X" and that we should treat them as gospel.
- atleastoptimal 4mo agoWhat 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 in return you are getting fewer jobs, less economic growth, more money to other countries who don't allow protesting or even complaining about data centers, etc.
- lcfcjs6 4mo ago[dead]
- everdrive 4mo ago>but in return you are getting fewer jobs, Certainly not in any meaningful way.
- iijaachok 4mo agoYou're conflating AI and AI Data centres. What kind of "jobs" does AI data centre creates? More jobs for factory workers who assemble video cards to be shipped and installed in a rack?
- legitster 4mo agoI think OP is talking about the downstream implications of productivity growth. Which is still yet hypothetical.
- insane_dreamer 4mo agoAI is designed to funnel productivity growth away from workers (less labor, downward pressure on remaining jobs) and to shareholders so not only is it hypothetical but if it becomes a reality (which seems probable), it is highly destructive to the average person
- croon 4mo ago
- brandonfalls 4mo ago[dead]
- Sol- 4mo agoThe less NIMBYs are involved or aware of any infrastructure project, the better. Is that even a question? They ruined enough opportunities and wealth in the last decades.
- fedreg 4mo agosome of these projects impact surrounding homes and businesses. NIMBYs should definitely be aware and involved
- nancyminusone 4mo agoI don't recall anyone in my town being overly angry when fiber internet dug up their front yards. But the datacenter they couldn't stop has made national news multiple times. Also, what wealth? "Please allow me to exploit your land for little benefit to you" isn't a great selling point.
- dieselgate 4mo agoYes, it is a question. Obviously a balance must be struck but where the line is drawn will depend. The point about "ruining wealth opportunities" will likely rub a lot of people the wrong way even on a place like YCombinator forum
- btian 4mo agoWhen I grew up in Singapore, the locations of all data centers are secret by default to prevent terrorist attacks.
- jstummbillig 4mo agoI mean the framing is so silly. "If bank vaults are so great, why would you not advertise their locations". It's a mystery, is what it is.
- ndsipa_pomu 4mo agoWell, banks aren't kept secret and the vaults are usually inside.
- jstummbillig 4mo agoThe point is that there is zero positive correlation between a vault doing its job and telling everyone where exactly it is. The bank would happily have it hidden in different secret dimension, if they could. It makes the vault safer. It's better. "Why would you not tell us how to get to the secret dimension if it's so great?" It's just a dumb question.
- ndsipa_pomu 4mo ago> The point is that there is zero positive correlation between a vault doing its job and telling everyone where exactly it is. Yes, but the more important correlation is between keeping something secret and it being a bad idea (at least for some people). It's like using security through obscurity - it has to be kept secret because it's flawed, whereas a bank vault doesn't need to be in a secret location because it has other means of protecting its contents. There's so many examples of closed source "security" that is just a clusterfuck. Not that mistakes aren't made with open source, but knowing that other people will likely look at your code tends to make people put a bit more thought into it.
- 4mo ago
- manyatoms 4mo agoThere's a ton of expensive hardware that thieves might want. Why wouldn't you keep that quiet.
- duped 4mo agoI'm as big of a skeptic on these AI companies and question deeply the long term value of data center buildout as a land use policy in the communities where they're being built. But: > So let me ask the question directly: if AI data centers are such a tremendous benefit to communities, why are so many of them being built without meaningful community input? Because of this (emphasis mine): > They’re watching their utility bills climb, finding sick animals they can’t explain, and worrying about the long-term impacts on their health and property values How are you supposed to have reasonable discussion about land use, economic impacts, zoning, etc when you're getting flooded with input from crockpots?
- dekhn 4mo agoCan you say with absolute certainty that sick animals and long term impacts on their health are not caused by data centers? Certainly we have long list of examples where industrial activity contaminated areas with little oversight and it did kill animals and cause long-term impacts on health. I think you're saying that data centers do not pollute in a way that would cause sick animals or long-term impacts on health, but I don't think that can be stated confidently.
- duped 4mo agoSo this might be controversial and I'm unable to phrase it better, but you can't always engage in good faith to address claims when the claimant themselves are incapable of engaging in good faith to make them. I could be convinced on negative environmental impact of data centers in a few ways. I could believe there's additional strain on water purification infrastructure if the open loop cooling systems are using additives and creating additional volume of water that existing treatment plants weren't designed to handle. I could believe that additional power demand and on-site generators using fossil fuels could create pollution where it didn't exist before. I could believe that in a rush to build quicker, construction crews take shortcuts. Basically all industrial activity on this planet creates waste that can harm people. That's why we create zones for it away from residences, and why land closer to it is cheaper. This is all stuff you can engage with good faith. The problem is these are not the claims that the crazy people are making, and not the ones it sounds like the author of TFA is bothering to investigate. There's a large group of people that will believe "thing bad, thing hurt" with zero evidence besides vibes, and you can't meet with psychosis on shared ground.
- legitster 4mo agoPeople's bewilderment about this stuff speaks more to how removed they are from their local civics. Nearly everything in your town is built like this. The amount of people who come out of the woodwork to oppose coffee shops, housing development, new hospitals, bus stops, etc would astound you. Try attending a local city council meeting. Part of the reason civic infrastructure takes so long and costs so much is because of the enormous burdens of transparency. Or the sheer number of things that can go wrong during zoning, development, etc. The best time to announce a new business is when construction is nearly done. And the cities themselves want the development to be secret because they don't want to be underbid by the town next door (did anybody actually like the transparency of Amazon's HQ2 process?)
- swatcoder 4mo agoModern data centers are effectively mines, but without even the upside of supporting a local economy. They extract local resources (land, power, grid capacity, water, etc) and sell that as compute. As a rule, the mine operators are national or multi-national firms that have no presence with which to invest the extraction profits back into the community. The local resources are harvested, processed, and sold, and then the proceeds disperse into the books of these gargantuan, far-off operators. The only way to recover some of the profits on those local resources where they're being harvested would be with taxes or similar ongoing development obligations, but the firms specifically predate on communities too politically weak to levy those against them. If AI isn't just an speculative bubble with gross overinvestment, they may have important value as a national economic or security interest, but they're pretty terrible and lop-sided deal for existing communities. That's why they're kept quiet.
- chasd00 4mo agoThey’re not built in secret, it’s just no one cared until now. How come no one cared when AWS and the other big cloud providers were building out all that infrastructure? Some one should put together a map of all data centers (not just “ai” datacenters), current and planned, complete with power and water consumption. oh the humanity!
- yegle 4mo agoUh, no? It was not built in secret before the AI hype. In fact as late as Jan 2026 Google was proudly presenting their new data centers in Bangkok: https://www.googlecloudpresscorner.com/2026-01-21-Google-Cloud-Launches-New-Cloud-Region-in-Thailand,-Bolstering-its-Commitment-to-Advancing-the-Countrys-AI-Driven-Digital-Economy https://www.googlecloudpresscorner.com/2026-01-21-Google-Clo... Disclaimer: Google Cloud employee
- ChrisArchitect 4mo agoPost is from last week, and is just an intro to the map project, discussed here at length: [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48287952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48287952
- dosisking 4mo agoAnd what happened to Climate Change? Seems that they don't care about it anymore, they rather have their data centers which give them more control over society
- insane_dreamer 4mo agoLooks like we're all so starry-eyed with the wonder of this shiny new tech that we don't gaf about global warming anymore (or the other impacts on society)
- vx_r 4mo agodito
- sublinear 4mo agoProject Stargate
- xnx 4mo agoSecret like this announcement by Google? https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/infrastructure-and-cloud/global-network/meitner-energy-center/ https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/infrastructure-and-clo...