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> In the right geography — somewhere with reliably cool outdoor air Aaahh, there’s the catch. “Save resources on cooling by building your data centre somewhere
by FridgeSeal 4mo ago
> In the right geography — somewhere with reliably cool outdoor air
Aaahh, there’s the catch.
“Save resources on cooling by building your data centre somewhere cold, and pollute the surrounding environment by dumping your waste heat wholesale into that!”
Good job Nvidia, I almost thought we had something good there.
- RealityVoid 4mo agoWaste heat from these things is negligible compared to the sun heat. I know people love to hate on these things, but come on...
- ai_brain_rot 4mo agoWell you know, data centers are optional. The sun is not. What a disingenuous comparison, do you hear yourself?
- mapcars 4mo agoComments on the internet are also optional, yet you do it
- crypttales 4mo ago[dead]
- balherian 4mo ago[flagged]
- patching-trowel 4mo agoNot sure it was a disingenuous comparison. If they’re saying the heat from a DC is drop in the bucket provided by the sun (in a given area), then that heat would indeed be negligible. On the other hand, if that heat comes in water form, and upsets the ecosystem (in a given area), then that would be NOT negligible. Not really about optionality in either case.
- crypttales 4mo ago[dead]
- joxdosba 4mo agoHave you stopped for a second to consider the utter mathematical absurdity of what you’re suggesting here? It is impossible for a datacenter to meaningfully heat more than the air in its immediate vicinity.
- NewsaHackO 4mo agoIt’s anti AI, so people would actually believe the data centers are going to singlehandly melt the icecaps
- xphos 4mo agoWell I mean not from the waste heat but they have expectations of GigaWatts of new sustained power because they always want to run. The US has on order of 1-2 Tera watts of power capacity so you are talking about .1% of the grid power if a hyperscalar datacenter takes 1 gig of power. I've seen projections of need 50-100 new gigs of capacity. We will see if that actually happens but if it does we are talk 5% increase in grid loading. It sounds small but that is a tremendous about of power. I mean there are a lot of solutions to making more power or making more efficient chips but to trivialize the impacts of AI as anti Ai propaganda which is how this comment comes of its a bit propaganda minded itself. I think backlash to AI is direct result of strawmaninh Anti AI as having only deranged opinions and anti progress. Where the datacenters are located people suffer because of high velocity don't care about consequences thinking. Every industry has to planing around people or people will do something crazy like burn the centers or try and nationalize data centers. I definitely think that would be stupid but don't underestimate stupid
- tehjoker 4mo agonothing wrong with nationalizing
- sidibe 4mo agoThis has also one of the arguments against AC in France, shame on you for wanting to moving the hot air from inside to outside.
- moffkalast 4mo agoOn an unrelated note, there are so many em dashes in this article I have to wonder if there was any human involved in the process at all. They could've at least signed Nemotron underneath as to not to offend reality.
- sandworm101 4mo agoTrust me. In the depths of a northern winter, nobody will complain about "waste heat". Just ask the manetees that huddle near reactor outflows in florida.
- rytis 4mo agoBut maybe we want northern winters to stay... northern winters?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 4mo agoWe'll complain if it gives us an allergy to steak. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/06/as-lone-star-ticks-move-north-red-meat-allergies-are-on-the-rise/ https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/06/as-lone-star-tick... Or malaria. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03476-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03476-7
- DanielHB 4mo agoDatacenter waste heat even a problem? I only ever heard of nuclear power plants waste heat being a problem when the cooling water is dumped directly into rivers (instead of the ocean).
- newsclues 4mo agoWaste heat is a problem for cities, why not a large DC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
- zulban 4mo agoEven the largest DC doesn't have anywhere near the waste heat of a city.
- imglorp 4mo agoOne of the larger DCs is 7.65 GW on 8000 acres in Texas. It will radiate around 236.3 W/m^2 (compare vs 1000 W/m^2 solar irradiation). This emission continues 24/7/365, while the sun doesn't. So yes, the UHI is real. That plus all the gas turbines powering it which release many tons of gasses. And finally all the infrasound from the DC and its generators have impacts on humans and all creatures for many miles away. Oh and the water consumption.
- post-it 4mo ago> One of the larger DCs is 7.65 GW "is" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The data centre doesn't exist.
- thinkingtoilet 4mo agoYes. The hot water the datacenters dump destroys local ecosystems.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- crunchiepooker 4mo agoI’d love that heat in the winter. Imagine, free heat! Linus heats his pool with excess cpu heat. It’s all about using things wisely and not panicking. AI and datacenters are here to stay, you can’t fight them, but you can leverage their waste for profit.
- coldtea 4mo ago>AI and datacenters are here to stay, you can’t fight them Sounds more like a threat than something desired
- expedition32 4mo agoThey were banned in my country through a democratic process. Ofcourse it is easier when they are all owned by foreign companies lol. If they actually made money and provided jobs (lmao) it might be different.
- Saline9515 4mo agoWhich country? Did they also ban AI use to be coherent?
- sebzim4500 4mo agoI don't see why it would be incoherent to ban datacenters but not AI use.
- Saline9515 4mo agoBecause it's a classic NIMBY move, where you pay others for the negative externalities of your consumption.
- rafram 4mo agoI'm not sure which country that is, but it would have to be on a different planet! No country on Earth has banned data centers.
- bluerooibos 4mo agoCan't beat thermodynamics - there's no free lunch there.
- agentultra 4mo agoYou can’t beat thermodynamics no matter how hard you try. This shouldn’t be a surprised to the majority of people.
- FrustratedMonky 4mo agoWouldn't building in the far North be easier than Space? At least better than the desert like Arizona?
- misja111 4mo agoI'd say that in cooler countries, warm water could be very useful, e.g. for heating houses.
- PurpleRamen 4mo agoMaybe, that's why they want Greenland so bad. Low temperature, many free spaces, no significant nature and if there is one, not enough citizen who can complain. And if they still need water for cooling, there is probably enough from the melting ice they can use.
- rafram 4mo ago1. Who is "they"? 2. Alaska has all of those things. (Though there's plenty of "significant nature" in both Greenland and Alaska.)
- glitchc 4mo agoAll the money they save on water cooling will be spent on massive undersea fiber lines to move the data to and from the island.
- cududa 4mo agoAh yes but you can shunt the costs of that off into a public works/ taxpayer funded infrastructure project
- rafram 4mo agoThe vast, vast majority of submarine cable projects are paid for with private money. I'm only aware of a few in the US that have received any public grants (all connecting relatively unprofitable areas like Hawaii, kind of analogous to the Essential Air Service program).
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- dopa42365 4mo agoThose are fairly cheap, hyperscalers have been building more or less their own cables for many years, they cost practically nothing compared to the data centers themselves. https://resources.telegeography.com/telegeography-content-providers-submarine-cable-holdings-list-new https://resources.telegeography.com/telegeography-content-pr...
- whazor 4mo agoWith LLM latencies, you won't notice it much.
- SecretDreams 4mo agoTo be fair to Nvidia, they are not the first person to dump their waste heat to a Tmin environment. There's a reason most power plants are near bodies of water.
- jason_s 4mo agoarticle also says: "The geography caveat matters. A data center in the Scottish Highlands and one in Phoenix, Arizona, face very different realities. But even in warmer climates, the shift toward 45-degrees-Celsius coolant moves operators significantly closer to that chiller-less ideal — where chillers may turn on just a few days a year when the outside air temperature demands it."
- slashdev 4mo agoWaste heat into the atmosphere is hardly pollution. I think you don’t understand the scales involved
- splendidz 4mo agoClassic "solve one problem, create another" move. At least they are honest about the tradeoffs I guess.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- j45 4mo agoCanada is building a ton of datacenters with this built in. It's not a sleight of hand. Datacenter locations mainly optimize power, cooling, and fibre. Cooling is not the same everywhere, even the US has places that are cool enough to not need evaporative cooling water use.