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Data centers trigger voter backlash

202 points by randycupertino 4mo ago

randycupertino 4mo ago
> In Utah on Wednesday, State Senate President J. Stuart Adams—one of the most powerful Republicans in the state—lost his primary election after supporting a major data center development near the Great Salt Lake, in one of the clearest signs yet of the growing political risks tied to the industry. > At the local level, the fallout was just as direct. “Do I think that the data center vote cost me the election? Yes I do,” former Box Elder County Commissioner Lee Perry said after conceding his primary race, after voting to advance the same project.
- downrightmike 4mo ago
  The Great Salt Lake is already disappearing and likely to create massive toxic winds because of all the toxic waste dumped into it. Using up that water faster is not a good thing.
luxuryballs 4mo ago
When I look at the total number of acres in a state and the number that may get taken up by a data center… not that we should even have to look at this spec but still not sure why people are so focused on data center construction as an issue unless it’s literally going to be next to your house, is there anything more than FUD going on here? And perhaps people taking advantage of it specifically as a talking point given election season.
- Rapzid 4mo ago
  Misdirected outrage. DCs are an easy outlet for people's AI frustration.
- idiotsecant 4mo ago
  When people hear datacenter they think ai-almost universally subsidies by the many for the few. They drive up electrical costs, increase carbon emissions, and are designed to make money by stealing and repackaging the fruit of human labor and thought, with the goal of ultimately replacing it not for the benefit of all, but for the benefit of the owners of that datacenter. What's not to like?
- DeRock 4mo ago
  > the Stratos development would have spanned tens of thousands of acres in Box Elder County’s Hansel Valley. The project would ultimately require up to 9 gigawatts of power—more electricity than the entire state of Utah currently uses Did you even read the article? This is proposed to be larger than Manhattan. The amount of power will almost certainly burden Utahs grid in ways that locals will be on the hook for. So much of this build out will be the typical "privatize gains, socialize losses" playbook that yes it is an important political issue, and yes you have to "look at this spec" to understand just how insane some of these project proposals are.
  - vablings 4mo ago
    "Privatize gains, socialize losses" This pretty much spells out exactly my big problem with datacenters. I don't care if you build a huge datacenter several miles away from my home. What I do care about is utilities cranking up the price 3x because of "capacity issues" afterwards because said datacenter now uses more power than the entire district I live in
  - luxuryballs 4mo ago
    Manhattan is roughly 0.00077% of U.S. land area.
- Diogenesian 4mo ago
  I think part of it is the perception that real environmental and public health damage is being done for totally trivial and indefensible causes. A data center is not like an airplane parts manufacturer, which has lots of ugly pollution but provides a necessary national service. Most people use generative AI recreationally, and the productivity gains among white-collar workers are awfully ephemeral. And if you're less pessimistic about the economics of generative AI... that makes it worse! "We get a ton of money, you get increased natural gas emissions, increased unemployment, your electric bill is going up... oh and guess who's bailing us out when the bubble bursts?" Pretty rotten deal!
  - luxuryballs 4mo ago
    casual/recreational AI use is only a subset of computing, data centers are a hardware problem, I say that tongue-in-cheek but literally it’s true, data centers and computing have always been growing in demand and distribution/regional needs regardless of the software and it will continue to evolve, making it an AI issue seems like an opportunistic way of injecting sentiment about AI for the purpose of discussing cultural opinions about AI, these vibes will transcend time and space regardless of the need for physical server space
- LorenPechtel 4mo ago
  The problem is not the center per se. The problem is the power. And, all too often they make up for the lack of utility capacity by putting in their own noisy generators.
- GarnetFloride 4mo ago
  You can't look at the total acreage of the state as a metric when 64.4% of the state is owned by the federal government. The proposed site is twice the size of Manhattan, NY and sized for 9GW of energy which is more than the entire state uses yearly. We literally do not have the water to support a data center that huge. They just enacted a fireworks ban because the weather people just had to create a whole new category for how dry and dangerous it is. Air quality is a constant problem because all the pollution from regions West of Utah collect right against the mountains. A few years ago we woke up to what looked like heavy fog, but it was smoke --from Siberia.
- apothegm 4mo ago
  Water usage concerns in a desert, perhaps?
yardie 4mo ago
A few months ago the founders of the top AI companies walked into Capitol Hill. Tried to explain to a room full of elected representatives exactly how their technology was going to put almost half the working population into under/unemployment and they should consider UBI [0]. Then they went back to the airport, got on their corporate jets, and went home secure in the knowledge that they really showed them. That they were the smartest people in the room. BTW, no one I know gives a shit about the energy consumption or water usage. They absolutely want to know if these datacenters will bring jobs to their area. So far Altman, Ellison, O'Leary, Amodei, Pichai, and Zuckerberg have refused to answer that question. [0] All except Jensen who has been really trying to explain the benefits of AI and has said these massive layoffs are a huge mistake.
- dreamcompiler 4mo ago
  Out here in the US southwest, we absolutely do care about water usage as well as the potential for higher electricity prices. We also care about jobs, which in the case of data centers are only going to be boosted temporarily until construction is finished.
- user3939382 4mo ago
  Plenty of people care about their power bill. Water in some regions is a hot political issue. Data centers don’t create jobs of course, we don’t need anyone to answer that.
  - Jtsummers 4mo ago
    "Some regions" being a a bit of an understatement, the US west and southwest are experiencing (or about to experience) severe water shortages and disruption due to the current water shortages.
    - stvltvs 4mo ago
      Lake Mead is projected next year to be at its lowest level since it was filled by the creation of Hoover Dam. The states on the Colorado River have been fighting over the dwindling water for decades. Locals care about water.
verdverm 4mo ago
The US needs to build out energy infra like China, already >2x more total generation capacity (~1/3 of world total). Putting data centers aside, if America wants to bring manufacturing back, it will need energy to build things. RE: data centers, we do need to be more mindful of where they go and the resources they consume. We should force them to use water efficient cooling (more expensive for them) and support the buildout of the required energy gen. Utah does not seem an appropriate place for such a large data center. The question is do we want to be a Petrostate or an Electrostate https://youtu.be/gLnxzkiB-GI?is=CHj3J-ARp0iBq_NB https://youtu.be/gLnxzkiB-GI?is=CHj3J-ARp0iBq_NB (Adam Tooze prezi) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...
- phlipski 4mo ago
  Most US citizens want to be an electrostate. This current administration wants to go back in time and try to be a petrostate....
  - verdverm 4mo ago
    That may not be true for much longer given the (disappointing) trend 2020 - 79 : 20 (renewables : fossil fuel) 2026 - 57 : 42 https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2026/04/03/americans-shifting-views-on-energy-issues/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2026/04/03/americans-shi...
    - spencerflem 4mo ago
      Which is why it was a mistake to let Republicans vote
      - verdverm 4mo ago
        All people (should) have the right to vote. If you don't like they way they vote, persuade them. This culture of political domination is at the core of our issues.
      - 4mo ago
cosmic_cheese 4mo ago
This is a pretty predictable reaction to the underhanded tactics being used to try to force these projects through either before citizens know they're happening and often, when citizens are aware, against their will. As a side note, I wish we could muster this kind of vigor for just about any other type of public infrastructure project… nuclear/wind/solar power, fiberoptic internet, public high speed rail, new cities built around human-centric principles… you know, the things that the better part of the population stands to benefit from so at least the initial unrest is somewhat justified.
- SpicyLemonZest 4mo ago
  We do muster this kind of vigor. The problem is that coverage decisions shaped by negativity bias ensure you're much more likely to hear about the projects people don't like. Did you hear about the huge New Mexico wind farm, largest in the US to date, that came online two weeks ago?
  - cosmic_cheese 4mo ago
    That's true, but I also see a lot of infrastructure projects that get gummed up or even canceled by NIMBYs, industry incumbents, and general obstructionism that would've happened had they been undertaken with the same bull-in-china-shop approach these datacenter projects tend to take.
- TheGRS 4mo ago
  You get the same vigor against all of those project all the time. Windmills, solar, nuclear, rail, etc. There's a stronger will to oppose than to build.
cdrnsf 4mo ago
Nothing this technology offers is, to me, worth the noise pollution or increase in water and electricity rates.
- toomuchtodo 4mo ago
  Not to mention the tax breaks they're given for no material benefit to the community. Future Illinois data center tax breaks on hold - https://www.illinoistimes.com/news/future-data-center-tax-breaks-on-hold/ https://www.illinoistimes.com/news/future-data-center-tax-br... - June 25th, 2026 State Data Center Policy Shifts as Governors Impose New Restrictions - https://www.multistate.us/insider/2026/6/22/state-data-center-policy-shifts-as-governors-impose-new-restrictions https://www.multistate.us/insider/2026/6/22/state-data-cente... - June 22nd, 2026 Gov. JB Pritzker suspends tax breaks for data centers, urges more discussion - https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/gov-jb-pritzker-to-suspend-tax-breaks-for-data-centers-urging-more-discussion/ https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/gov-jb-pritzker-to-susp... - June 5th, 2026 Which States Are Banning Data Centers? - https://www.ncsl.org/fiscal/which-states-are-banning-data-centers https://www.ncsl.org/fiscal/which-states-are-banning-data-ce... - June 2nd, 2026 US tax incentives for data centers by state - https://knowledge.sdialliance.org/8d367baa340046029912b1e04cc89ec2 https://knowledge.sdialliance.org/8d367baa340046029912b1e04c... Tax Incentives for Data Centers 50 State Survey - https://hbfiles.blob.core.windows.net/webfiles/TaxIncentivesforDataCenters50StateSurvey.pdf https://hbfiles.blob.core.windows.net/webfiles/TaxIncentives... [pdf]
  - simianwords 4mo ago
    Again misleading. they bring back more in tax than the subsidies.
    - toomuchtodo 4mo ago
      Please provide citations to support this assertion.
- echelon 4mo ago
  [flagged]
jrm4 4mo ago
Generally, I'm glad that "the people" appear to be pointed in the IMHO correct direction, even if for imprecise, or maybe even wrong, reasons. Regardless of what they are used for, we do not need more "data centers." This is true even outside of AI. Putting so much of us into "the cloud" is generally harmful; encouraging people to learn about, and to do more "computing" at home -- on local machines they, or someone who cares about them, control, is better.
- xantronix 4mo ago
  I'm happy to endure HN if it means I get to see hopeful, reasonable observations like yours.
  - simianwords 4mo ago
    You think this is reasonable? The person is just trying to conserve their job. It’s an act of self preservation and the opposite of virtue. And it’s not even historically accurate.
munificent 4mo ago
It's not really about AI, data centers, water consumption, or energy. Those are real issues. But I don't think that's what gets people so riled up. Imagine if every AI company was a small local business run by middle class folks and there were thousands of these little companies. The total amount of data centers, water, and energy consumption is the same. I don't think people would be anywhere near as mad then. There are still other societal externalities around AI to get mad about, sure. But I think one of the biggest drivers of rage around AI is inequality. It's not about what is being consumed to produce AI, it's about the tiny fraction of soulless billionaire elites that benefit from it. It's about a small number of fantastically rich assholes who keep taking more and more and more while there is less and less left for everyone else. The rage that Luigi Mangione felt is the same rage these voters feel and I believe has the same root cause. That rage won't go away if AI gets more energy efficient or stops using water.
- simianwords 4mo ago
  > The rage that Luigi Mangione felt Luigi is an interesting case because he is not who you think he is. He is definitely not a luddite or populist. I know this because I read a social deep dive on him. His interests, the books he read, the accounts he followed all point to a level of sophistication that indicates he was well above the simplistic "us vs them" Marxist framework. I also disagree with your overall point here: its not (just) about inequality. AI benefits everyone while also benefitting the billionaires - even disproportionately. What one should definitely acknowledge is that AI is raising the floor and is not _taking_ something from poor people and giving it to the billionaires which is again applying the Marxist framework. What is true is that, even if people are overall benefitting from AI, they are feeling powerless and sense a lack of agency where they see a big societal change happening in front of their eyes and they don't have any say in it. Having no say is kinda the default so you see the backlash from the educated elites who always thought they had a voice - until the AI technology boom came.
  - pesus 4mo ago
    > AI benefits everyone while also benefitting the billionaires - even disproportionately. Source? Also, you seem to be (probably intentionally) mixing up who's an elite and who's not. The people controlling and profiting from AI companies and their ilk are elites. The average person who's livelihood is at risk is not an elite, not matter how much you may try to spin it.
arjie 4mo ago
Honestly, voter backlash occurs for every reason. Build more homes? Backlash. Build more wind? Backlash. Build more solar? Backlash. Build more geothermal? Backlash. Build more urban subway? Backlash. Build high-speed rail? Backlash. What I can conclude from this is that what is right to do and what voter backlash occurs in is orthogonal. I think it is right that we build all these things and more nuclear power, and more residential super towers, and more datacenters, and the other things for the same reason we climb the mountains, fly the Atlantic, and Rice plays Texas.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
  How does a new datacenter help the voters? All they see is that their electricity prices are going to go up.
  - anthonypasq 4mo ago
    why do we give a shit what voters think should happen on someone else's property again?
    - recursive 4mo ago
      Because "we" want to get elected?
    - AngryData 4mo ago
      Because what your neighbors do on their property effects you on your property. That is why zoning and permitting exists.
      - anthonypasq 4mo ago
        defending the existing zoning and permitting regime will get your no where with me unfortunately. if we dismantled local control of those 2 things the majority of this countries problems would go away.
  - downrightmike 4mo ago
amirhirsch 4mo ago
[dead]
madrox 4mo ago
The rhetoric around AI has been insane for years now. AI will kill us all. AI will take all our jobs. SaaS is dead. AI is too dangerous to even release. It's really no surprise at all voters hate data centers, no matter how useful they think AI might be. But I don't think the rhetoric will end any time soon. The people saying it seem to really believe it.
deleted 4mo ago
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thewillowcat 4mo ago
I can tell you, based on local examples, that politicians are setting up deals to bring in data centers without trying to build community support first. Not only that, they are often signing NDAs that prohibit them from telling voters what they have agreed to. It's no way to operate in a democracy, and voters are right to be angry.
- colechristensen 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mrtesthah 4mo ago
    Is it really a matter of "national security" when the technology at hand is being used in a way that unilaterally benefits a small class of oligarchs at the expense of the rest of society? That's not really in the benefit of the nation anymore, is it?
    - AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
      Depends on what you think "the nation" is. Is it the "regular people"? Or is it the elite? (And whichever you think it is, and no matter how obvious you think it is, there are people who think it is obviously the opposite.)
      - svachalek 4mo ago
        There's practically nothing you can get 100% agreement on, and yet we can still find that there is a right answer.
    - WarmWash 4mo ago
      The technology at hand is essentially a genius in your pocket being given away for $20/mo. I mean yeah, $20 is greater than free, but let's have a least a mild level of honesty here
      - 4mo ago
simianwords 4mo ago
This is because there's a new political divide that makes the old left vs right obsolete: it is neo-luddites vs tech optimists. It cross-cuts against the old and outdated political compass. Neo-luddites are usually the educated elite and genealogy is from old green or left politics but includes nationalists and social conservatives. I think media is broadly failing to recognise this new clan.
- pesus 4mo ago
  The current far right government/movement (aka conservatives) is far more in favor of AI than people opposed to them. You seem to be labeling just about everything as the opposite of what it actually is. Are you invested in or working at an AI company?
  - simianwords 4mo ago
    I think your view is too simplistic and falls easily into the populist narrative so you end up mislabelling me as being invested. You are again doing the thing I flagged in my original comment - the left right or progressive/conservative axis is not useful anymore. As an example: a lot of tech CEO's were originally against Trump but ended up caving precisely because the left became anti-technology broadly. From experience and anecdotes, tech and AI optimism cross cuts into the old axis. Examples 1. third world countries are way more optimistic about AI than first world 2. many celebs (for the lack of better word) are pro AI - look at Redis, Django, NodeJS, Github 3. the existence of Effective Altruism itself should prove that this axis is useless - EA was largely leftist and support democrats while also being "pro" AI like Anthropic is mostly made from the EA cult The nomenclature also doesn't make sense to me. Why would conservatives not conserve but rather push for progress? What are conservatives conserving instead? The academic consensus is that technology determines the societal culture and if conservatives wanted to conserve anything, they would conserve technology first wouldn't they?
    - pesus 4mo ago
      None of this changes the fact that average people aren't elites, no matter how much you may try to spin it that way. And ironically, your comment and views are themselves extremely simplistic. New technology is not inherently progress. Being opposed to specific applications or misuse or consequences of a type of technology is not the same as being broadly anti-technology. A "populist narrative" is an incredibly vague oversimplification, and an ironic thing to complain about in a comment that only serves to spread the pro-elite and anti-human narrative the AI corporations are currently pushing.
socalgal2 4mo ago
I know I’ll get downvoted into oblivion but I can’t help but think data center and ai backlash manufactured or is a psi-ops campaign by Russia or China It doesn’t make any sense to me as the externalities are future not current and at no other point in time has the public cared about the future without first seeing concrete examples of harm. That hasn’t happened yet for data centers nor AI. It’s all “if, maybe, sometime in the future” People will claim real harms but the connections are spotty at best. So it feels like people are stirring the pot. like if not Russia or China then just influencers doing it for rage bait for likes and subscribes I’m not saying they are wrong, I can’t predict the future, I’m only saying it feels unusual for the reasons mentioned above
- TSiege 4mo ago
  Almost every major issue has bot networks from hostile countries playing both sides of any issue to intentionally cause chaos. I completely agree that russia, china, or some other country is fomenting anger here. That and the other issues aside, I think AI companies have done this to themselves. They've gone around talking about replacing all human labor and becoming the companies that control robot god's that swallow the entire economy and put everyone out of work and might destroy man kind. Well saying that is gonna make people hate them and that will find an outlet somewhere
  - catapart 4mo ago
    so what makes you think that you aren't responding to a bot intending to sway your opinion by giving a shape to your preconceived notions so that your position crystallizes further, right now?
- jrnichols 4mo ago
  From folks I've talked to in real life, it really does seem that way. They're getting their information from Facebook but it's mixed in with the "5G towers are killing all the bees" and the usual anti-vaccine rhetoric. Seeing that erin brockovich has jumped on the anti-data center bandwagon makes it even more suspicious to me.
- logicchains 4mo ago
exabrial 4mo ago
Ah the power of Social Media manipulation. https://www.axios.com/2026/06/05/china-fueling-us-data-center-resistance-ai-groups-claim https://www.axios.com/2026/06/05/china-fueling-us-data-cente... Allegedly. Another groups claims false flag operation. Ain't it great?
- vinniepukh 4mo ago
  you believe this?
  - exabrial 4mo ago
    I'm pointing out there are two groups blaming each other. I don't know which is right. But I absolutely believe that social media's agenda is a directed agenda.
  - logicchains 4mo ago
    Even OpenAI believes it, and found concrete evidence: https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-debates/ https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-...
    - mjhay 4mo ago
      wow, that’s crazy that OpenAI is saying that negative opinion against them is actually a nefarious foreign conspiracy, and does not actually indicate people hate them
- mjhay 4mo ago
  Ah, Axios. The same great outlet that has gotten the scoop on the Iran war ending numerous times.
rvz 4mo ago
AI is hated far more than crypto. No other technology gets as much hatred as AI is getting as the public see that as a threat to their own jobs. Of course techies here are having trouble understanding this backlash. Maybe they should read up a bit on the Unabomber Manifesto to draw parallels on the motivations of the awful attacks against CEOs recently. Just like crypto, you cannot use it to solve social problems with technical solutions. The same goes for AI as it still requires humans and trust to use it effectively. The more AI data centers get built, the more it is hated and the worse society gets with this loss of trust as more people read about more mass layoffs.
deleted 4mo ago
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pantsforbirds 4mo ago
I've never seen the level of anti-scientific, straight misinformation as I have with data centers. I genuinely think it's to the point where the antivaxxers have a stronger scientific backing for their stance. It did not feel organic at all. It's to the point now where that initial seeding of ideas has gained legitimate traction, but the initial burst of anti-datacenter content was wild to see in real time.
- logicchains 4mo ago
  It's absolutely not organic: https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-debates/ https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-...
deschutes 4mo ago
What is so objectionable about data centers anyway? That they consume utilities without employing a substantial amount of people? Compared to actual manufacturing like fabs the pollution concerns are laughable. The water use issue seems to be a wedge.
- recursive 4mo ago
  Data centers are where AI comes from.
- esikich 4mo ago
  I live in an area built on paper mills. Our rivers are trashed from the paper mills. It smells bad in areas because of paper mills. Paper mills use a lot of electricity. But people are absolutely losing their minds over the pollution from proposed data centers. I'm not sure there's a cleaner industry in existence.
e40 4mo ago
What the comments fail to point out (and I haven't read the article to find out if they address it): the number of data centers being built is based on speculation of need and is a dramatic over-estimate. It has to be. What, other than AI has happened in the last few years that would warrant that many new data centers? How do they know there will be customers for that capacity? There will not be advances in algorithms, etc that do AI much more efficiently? (We know China is making strides in that!) It's complete speculation! It's the new gold rush and everyone wants a data center. Most of these data centers might not even be built! And the ones that are, might never make any profit.
- therealdrag0 4mo ago
  It doesn’t “has to be”. You’re speculating just as much.
  - e40 4mo ago
    I don't think so. Look at these numbers: | Year | Capacity (GW) | Construction Spending | | 2015 | 0.2 – 0.3 GW | $1.8 Billion | | 2016 | 0.3 – 0.4 GW | $2.2 Billion | | 2017 | 0.4 – 0.5 GW | $3.1 Billion | | 2018 | 0.5 – 0.6 GW | $4.5 Billion | | 2019 | 0.6 – 0.7 GW | $6.2 Billion | | 2020 | 0.8 – 1.0 GW | $8.0 Billion | | 2021 | 1.2 – 1.5 GW | $10.0 Billion | | 2022 | 2.0 – 2.5 GW | $15.0 Billion | | 2023 | 3.5 – 4.0 GW | $20.0 Billion | | 2024 | 6.4 GW | $35.0 Billion | | 2025 | 8.5 GW | $46.0 Billion | | 2026 | 13.6 GW | $50.7 Billion | 2026 figures represent full-year capacity projections and annualized construction spending rates. There is absolutely no way that increase was planned due to precisely planned for capacity. It's speculation.
    - therealdrag0 4mo ago
      What I meant to push back on is that speculation doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It doesn’t “have to be” an “over-estimate” even if it’s obviously speculation. Any multiyear investment that depends on future demand requires speculation. Shrug. I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s part of running a business and address a market. For all we know it’s an under-estimate.
bamboozled 4mo ago
"Voted backlash", nothing will change.
teravor 4mo ago
even if datacenters aren't good for the communities there are in, it would be much worse if China advances in AI faster. this is one of the core flaws in democracy, while the popularity contest generally curbs blatant abuse (also note how even that fails miserably when the electorate groups start to hate each other), the vast majority of people have no real way to judge the impacts of non-trivial decisions and judgement doesn't even need to come with certainty, just knowing which risks are worth it. voters will never get it right. and in the information age, democratic sabotage is many times easier than informing a public that in most cases has no interest in being informed when the group think/herd instincts are triggered. i suspect democracy only worked well thus far because it was never truly real. media was always concentrated and there were no non-democratic peers. this is no longer the case. when the media was concentrated democracy was just an emergent properly of media dynamics. now it's chaotic and subject to external targeted perturbation.
- ok123456 4mo ago
  I think China "advancing" faster is better. Hoarding some magic numbers on a hard drive isn't a sound business plan, and shouldn't be what we're betting the farm (literally) on.
  - teravor 4mo ago
    they are only releasing open weight models to damage the closed off US AI corpos. while the next GLM model may get a similar open release, I doubt the one after that will.
    - ok123456 4mo ago
      Or maybe they have different incentives and don't see providing an inference as a service for the entire world as a viable business model. Open source isn't a zero-sum game.
      - Espressosaurus 4mo ago
        Look at which models are getting open-weights vs. which ones aren't. That tap can be shut off at any time and it's already being shut off for their biggest models.
miiiiiike 4mo ago
It’s reaching the point of absurdity in my area. People are bringing “All data centers are flammable” signs to city meetings. A plot of land that’s already zoned for the heaviest of industrial activities, is across the street from a dump, 3 miles from an airport, 16 miles from a nuclear generating station, and in a region with good climate, and no water crunch is a pretty good place for a data center. Facts don’t matter, it’s a religious fight. Even if you provide numbers specific to the local area there’s no way to pierce the rhetoric. Too much land? I added up lol the land used by the 10+ golf courses in the area. Dwarfs the proposal. Too much water? I called the head of the parks department and asked them how much water the golf courses that they operate use each year. Massive. Regional electricity costs going up? Our nuclear generating station already sells 80-85% of all power generated wholesale to other markets. Data centers are loud? I measured the noise outside of my house. I live on a busy street. It was much louder than the viral videos going around Facebook with titles like “Data center noise from my porch SCARY MUST WATCH”. I don’t know about all proposed data centers everywhere, but the one they’re eyeing to build in my backyard is fine by me. I lived in Northern Virginia for years. Data centers are everywhere. It’s really hard to explain that centers aren’t bad and are actually far more efficient than the alternatives. Just don’t run them on coal, natural gas, or the souls of orphans. And don’t rely exclusively on evaporative cooling if it’s in the desert. They’re having fun treating tech people like villains. It was the same or worse with bankers back in 2008-2010. Anything I have to say, any data provided, any comparisons made, are biassed because I “use data centers”. When I explain that they use data centers as well, I get the finger. When I talked to an anti data center family member who runs a local Facebook news group (5,000+ subscribers) they just kept sending me Google AI summaries as counter points… My god. I don’t even use gen AI. People want to enjoy the benefits of progress and data centers while still being loudly “moral”. All of this on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. How many data centers are involved to get a post from poster to viewer? 2? 3? 8? A bad data center project proposal somewhere should not mean opposition to data center projects everywhere.
- spencerflem 4mo ago
  One refrigerator sized rack at a datacenter takes as much power as 150 homes, and they’re using it for technology that disempowers and annoys people. It’s pretty obviously offensive. All for rezoning golf courses too
irusensei 4mo ago
This goes to every LinkedIn brain idiot spouting recycled nonsense about the new Industrial Revolution and that white collar jobs are going away. These blabbering idiots never read a story book to understand the time period, that people displaced by industrialization were uneducated illiterate farm workers in a period in time before democracy. Jump today most countries stable enough to build infrastructure are democracies and the white collar people you are demonizing do vote and that immense investment in infrastructure is not really easy to relocate.
metaopai 4mo ago
Datacenters are a hedge the investor class is pushing and it's not really needed. Once you realize: 1) LLM = CPU 2) Session Context = L1, L2, L3, CPU Cache the entire AI industry is operating within the CPU cache of the LLM provider this is why cost moves quadratically, increases noise - signal ration, regenerative feedback loop, it dilutes the user narration, and it actually creates an architectural induce hallucination. We've literally solved this problem in the 1960's with a memory architecture: the OS has a memory controller, tasked with taking data from persistant structure storage (HD) loading into CPU Cache and the CPU computers, the output is stored in RAM and then moved into HD. this is required on all AI applications, what the industry has done, is supplement a RAG which is summarizing context, however the entire context summarized chain is still being processed by the LLM. if you employ a well sustain memory architecture you can retrieve the context you only need to feed to the llm. reduce token cost and then reduce energy therefore less demand of datacenters. checkout my article and what i built metaop.ai it's a humble promotion but no one cares about ai memory. https://x.com/metaopai/status/2070187664192524528 https://x.com/metaopai/status/2070187664192524528
duxup 4mo ago
It’s so strange, we’ve been building data centers for ages without being a jerk about it…
VaderAi 4mo ago
If data centres use gas turbine engines they would be far better off to not affect power in those areas of communities
qsxfthnkp2322 4mo ago
Maybe we should charge data centers double the tax rate so that they can fund that universal welfare and healthcare all the ai ceos keep talking about when we all are out of work. There no reason to give them tax breaks. They don’t do anything of substance to the local economy.

202 points by randycupertino 4mo ago

> In Utah on Wednesday, State Senate President J. Stuart Adams—one of the most powerful Republicans in the state—lost his primary election after supporting a major data center development near the Great Salt Lake, in one of the clearest signs yet of the growing political risks tied to the industry. > At the local level, the fallout was just as direct. “Do I think that the data center vote cost me the election? Yes I do,” former Box Elder County Commissioner Lee Perry said after conceding his primary race, after voting to advance the same project.

downrightmike 4mo ago
The Great Salt Lake is already disappearing and likely to create massive toxic winds because of all the toxic waste dumped into it. Using up that water faster is not a good thing.

luxuryballs 4mo ago

When I look at the total number of acres in a state and the number that may get taken up by a data center… not that we should even have to look at this spec but still not sure why people are so focused on data center construction as an issue unless it’s literally going to be next to your house, is there anything more than FUD going on here? And perhaps people taking advantage of it specifically as a talking point given election season.

Rapzid 4mo ago
Misdirected outrage. DCs are an easy outlet for people's AI frustration.
idiotsecant 4mo ago
When people hear datacenter they think ai-almost universally subsidies by the many for the few. They drive up electrical costs, increase carbon emissions, and are designed to make money by stealing and repackaging the fruit of human labor and thought, with the goal of ultimately replacing it not for the benefit of all, but for the benefit of the owners of that datacenter. What's not to like?
DeRock 4mo ago
> the Stratos development would have spanned tens of thousands of acres in Box Elder County’s Hansel Valley. The project would ultimately require up to 9 gigawatts of power—more electricity than the entire state of Utah currently uses Did you even read the article? This is proposed to be larger than Manhattan. The amount of power will almost certainly burden Utahs grid in ways that locals will be on the hook for. So much of this build out will be the typical "privatize gains, socialize losses" playbook that yes it is an important political issue, and yes you have to "look at this spec" to understand just how insane some of these project proposals are.
- vablings 4mo ago
  "Privatize gains, socialize losses" This pretty much spells out exactly my big problem with datacenters. I don't care if you build a huge datacenter several miles away from my home. What I do care about is utilities cranking up the price 3x because of "capacity issues" afterwards because said datacenter now uses more power than the entire district I live in
- luxuryballs 4mo ago
  Manhattan is roughly 0.00077% of U.S. land area.
Diogenesian 4mo ago
I think part of it is the perception that real environmental and public health damage is being done for totally trivial and indefensible causes. A data center is not like an airplane parts manufacturer, which has lots of ugly pollution but provides a necessary national service. Most people use generative AI recreationally, and the productivity gains among white-collar workers are awfully ephemeral. And if you're less pessimistic about the economics of generative AI... that makes it worse! "We get a ton of money, you get increased natural gas emissions, increased unemployment, your electric bill is going up... oh and guess who's bailing us out when the bubble bursts?" Pretty rotten deal!
- luxuryballs 4mo ago
  casual/recreational AI use is only a subset of computing, data centers are a hardware problem, I say that tongue-in-cheek but literally it’s true, data centers and computing have always been growing in demand and distribution/regional needs regardless of the software and it will continue to evolve, making it an AI issue seems like an opportunistic way of injecting sentiment about AI for the purpose of discussing cultural opinions about AI, these vibes will transcend time and space regardless of the need for physical server space
LorenPechtel 4mo ago
The problem is not the center per se. The problem is the power. And, all too often they make up for the lack of utility capacity by putting in their own noisy generators.
GarnetFloride 4mo ago
You can't look at the total acreage of the state as a metric when 64.4% of the state is owned by the federal government. The proposed site is twice the size of Manhattan, NY and sized for 9GW of energy which is more than the entire state uses yearly. We literally do not have the water to support a data center that huge. They just enacted a fireworks ban because the weather people just had to create a whole new category for how dry and dangerous it is. Air quality is a constant problem because all the pollution from regions West of Utah collect right against the mountains. A few years ago we woke up to what looked like heavy fog, but it was smoke --from Siberia.
apothegm 4mo ago
Water usage concerns in a desert, perhaps?

yardie 4mo ago

A few months ago the founders of the top AI companies walked into Capitol Hill. Tried to explain to a room full of elected representatives exactly how their technology was going to put almost half the working population into under/unemployment and they should consider UBI [0]. Then they went back to the airport, got on their corporate jets, and went home secure in the knowledge that they really showed them. That they were the smartest people in the room. BTW, no one I know gives a shit about the energy consumption or water usage. They absolutely want to know if these datacenters will bring jobs to their area. So far Altman, Ellison, O'Leary, Amodei, Pichai, and Zuckerberg have refused to answer that question. [0] All except Jensen who has been really trying to explain the benefits of AI and has said these massive layoffs are a huge mistake.

dreamcompiler 4mo ago
Out here in the US southwest, we absolutely do care about water usage as well as the potential for higher electricity prices. We also care about jobs, which in the case of data centers are only going to be boosted temporarily until construction is finished.
user3939382 4mo ago
Plenty of people care about their power bill. Water in some regions is a hot political issue. Data centers don’t create jobs of course, we don’t need anyone to answer that.
- Jtsummers 4mo ago
  "Some regions" being a a bit of an understatement, the US west and southwest are experiencing (or about to experience) severe water shortages and disruption due to the current water shortages.
  - stvltvs 4mo ago
    Lake Mead is projected next year to be at its lowest level since it was filled by the creation of Hoover Dam. The states on the Colorado River have been fighting over the dwindling water for decades. Locals care about water.

verdverm 4mo ago

The US needs to build out energy infra like China, already >2x more total generation capacity (~1/3 of world total). Putting data centers aside, if America wants to bring manufacturing back, it will need energy to build things. RE: data centers, we do need to be more mindful of where they go and the resources they consume. We should force them to use water efficient cooling (more expensive for them) and support the buildout of the required energy gen. Utah does not seem an appropriate place for such a large data center. The question is do we want to be a Petrostate or an Electrostate https://youtu.be/gLnxzkiB-GI?is=CHj3J-ARp0iBq_NB https://youtu.be/gLnxzkiB-GI?is=CHj3J-ARp0iBq_NB (Adam Tooze prezi) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

phlipski 4mo ago
Most US citizens want to be an electrostate. This current administration wants to go back in time and try to be a petrostate....
- verdverm 4mo ago
  That may not be true for much longer given the (disappointing) trend 2020 - 79 : 20 (renewables : fossil fuel) 2026 - 57 : 42 https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2026/04/03/americans-shifting-views-on-energy-issues/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2026/04/03/americans-shi...
  - spencerflem 4mo ago
    Which is why it was a mistake to let Republicans vote
    - verdverm 4mo ago
      All people (should) have the right to vote. If you don't like they way they vote, persuade them. This culture of political domination is at the core of our issues.
    - 4mo ago

cosmic_cheese 4mo ago

This is a pretty predictable reaction to the underhanded tactics being used to try to force these projects through either before citizens know they're happening and often, when citizens are aware, against their will. As a side note, I wish we could muster this kind of vigor for just about any other type of public infrastructure project… nuclear/wind/solar power, fiberoptic internet, public high speed rail, new cities built around human-centric principles… you know, the things that the better part of the population stands to benefit from so at least the initial unrest is somewhat justified.

SpicyLemonZest 4mo ago
We do muster this kind of vigor. The problem is that coverage decisions shaped by negativity bias ensure you're much more likely to hear about the projects people don't like. Did you hear about the huge New Mexico wind farm, largest in the US to date, that came online two weeks ago?
- cosmic_cheese 4mo ago
  That's true, but I also see a lot of infrastructure projects that get gummed up or even canceled by NIMBYs, industry incumbents, and general obstructionism that would've happened had they been undertaken with the same bull-in-china-shop approach these datacenter projects tend to take.
TheGRS 4mo ago
You get the same vigor against all of those project all the time. Windmills, solar, nuclear, rail, etc. There's a stronger will to oppose than to build.

cdrnsf 4mo ago

Nothing this technology offers is, to me, worth the noise pollution or increase in water and electricity rates.

toomuchtodo 4mo ago
Not to mention the tax breaks they're given for no material benefit to the community. Future Illinois data center tax breaks on hold - https://www.illinoistimes.com/news/future-data-center-tax-breaks-on-hold/ https://www.illinoistimes.com/news/future-data-center-tax-br... - June 25th, 2026 State Data Center Policy Shifts as Governors Impose New Restrictions - https://www.multistate.us/insider/2026/6/22/state-data-center-policy-shifts-as-governors-impose-new-restrictions https://www.multistate.us/insider/2026/6/22/state-data-cente... - June 22nd, 2026 Gov. JB Pritzker suspends tax breaks for data centers, urges more discussion - https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/gov-jb-pritzker-to-suspend-tax-breaks-for-data-centers-urging-more-discussion/ https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/gov-jb-pritzker-to-susp... - June 5th, 2026 Which States Are Banning Data Centers? - https://www.ncsl.org/fiscal/which-states-are-banning-data-centers https://www.ncsl.org/fiscal/which-states-are-banning-data-ce... - June 2nd, 2026 US tax incentives for data centers by state - https://knowledge.sdialliance.org/8d367baa340046029912b1e04cc89ec2 https://knowledge.sdialliance.org/8d367baa340046029912b1e04c... Tax Incentives for Data Centers 50 State Survey - https://hbfiles.blob.core.windows.net/webfiles/TaxIncentivesforDataCenters50StateSurvey.pdf https://hbfiles.blob.core.windows.net/webfiles/TaxIncentives... [pdf]
- simianwords 4mo ago
  Again misleading. they bring back more in tax than the subsidies.
  - toomuchtodo 4mo ago
    Please provide citations to support this assertion.
echelon 4mo ago
[flagged]

jrm4 4mo ago

Generally, I'm glad that "the people" appear to be pointed in the IMHO correct direction, even if for imprecise, or maybe even wrong, reasons. Regardless of what they are used for, we do not need more "data centers." This is true even outside of AI. Putting so much of us into "the cloud" is generally harmful; encouraging people to learn about, and to do more "computing" at home -- on local machines they, or someone who cares about them, control, is better.

xantronix 4mo ago
I'm happy to endure HN if it means I get to see hopeful, reasonable observations like yours.
- simianwords 4mo ago
  You think this is reasonable? The person is just trying to conserve their job. It’s an act of self preservation and the opposite of virtue. And it’s not even historically accurate.

munificent 4mo ago

It's not really about AI, data centers, water consumption, or energy. Those are real issues. But I don't think that's what gets people so riled up. Imagine if every AI company was a small local business run by middle class folks and there were thousands of these little companies. The total amount of data centers, water, and energy consumption is the same. I don't think people would be anywhere near as mad then. There are still other societal externalities around AI to get mad about, sure. But I think one of the biggest drivers of rage around AI is inequality. It's not about what is being consumed to produce AI, it's about the tiny fraction of soulless billionaire elites that benefit from it. It's about a small number of fantastically rich assholes who keep taking more and more and more while there is less and less left for everyone else. The rage that Luigi Mangione felt is the same rage these voters feel and I believe has the same root cause. That rage won't go away if AI gets more energy efficient or stops using water.

simianwords 4mo ago
> The rage that Luigi Mangione felt Luigi is an interesting case because he is not who you think he is. He is definitely not a luddite or populist. I know this because I read a social deep dive on him. His interests, the books he read, the accounts he followed all point to a level of sophistication that indicates he was well above the simplistic "us vs them" Marxist framework. I also disagree with your overall point here: its not (just) about inequality. AI benefits everyone while also benefitting the billionaires - even disproportionately. What one should definitely acknowledge is that AI is raising the floor and is not _taking_ something from poor people and giving it to the billionaires which is again applying the Marxist framework. What is true is that, even if people are overall benefitting from AI, they are feeling powerless and sense a lack of agency where they see a big societal change happening in front of their eyes and they don't have any say in it. Having no say is kinda the default so you see the backlash from the educated elites who always thought they had a voice - until the AI technology boom came.
- pesus 4mo ago
  > AI benefits everyone while also benefitting the billionaires - even disproportionately. Source? Also, you seem to be (probably intentionally) mixing up who's an elite and who's not. The people controlling and profiting from AI companies and their ilk are elites. The average person who's livelihood is at risk is not an elite, not matter how much you may try to spin it.

arjie 4mo ago

Honestly, voter backlash occurs for every reason. Build more homes? Backlash. Build more wind? Backlash. Build more solar? Backlash. Build more geothermal? Backlash. Build more urban subway? Backlash. Build high-speed rail? Backlash. What I can conclude from this is that what is right to do and what voter backlash occurs in is orthogonal. I think it is right that we build all these things and more nuclear power, and more residential super towers, and more datacenters, and the other things for the same reason we climb the mountains, fly the Atlantic, and Rice plays Texas.

amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
How does a new datacenter help the voters? All they see is that their electricity prices are going to go up.
- anthonypasq 4mo ago
  why do we give a shit what voters think should happen on someone else's property again?
  - recursive 4mo ago
    Because "we" want to get elected?
  - AngryData 4mo ago
    Because what your neighbors do on their property effects you on your property. That is why zoning and permitting exists.
    - anthonypasq 4mo ago
      defending the existing zoning and permitting regime will get your no where with me unfortunately. if we dismantled local control of those 2 things the majority of this countries problems would go away.
- downrightmike 4mo ago

amirhirsch 4mo ago

[dead]

madrox 4mo ago

The rhetoric around AI has been insane for years now. AI will kill us all. AI will take all our jobs. SaaS is dead. AI is too dangerous to even release. It's really no surprise at all voters hate data centers, no matter how useful they think AI might be. But I don't think the rhetoric will end any time soon. The people saying it seem to really believe it.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

thewillowcat 4mo ago

I can tell you, based on local examples, that politicians are setting up deals to bring in data centers without trying to build community support first. Not only that, they are often signing NDAs that prohibit them from telling voters what they have agreed to. It's no way to operate in a democracy, and voters are right to be angry.

colechristensen 4mo ago
[flagged]
- mrtesthah 4mo ago
  Is it really a matter of "national security" when the technology at hand is being used in a way that unilaterally benefits a small class of oligarchs at the expense of the rest of society? That's not really in the benefit of the nation anymore, is it?
  - AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
    Depends on what you think "the nation" is. Is it the "regular people"? Or is it the elite? (And whichever you think it is, and no matter how obvious you think it is, there are people who think it is obviously the opposite.)
    - svachalek 4mo ago
      There's practically nothing you can get 100% agreement on, and yet we can still find that there is a right answer.
  - WarmWash 4mo ago
    The technology at hand is essentially a genius in your pocket being given away for $20/mo. I mean yeah, $20 is greater than free, but let's have a least a mild level of honesty here
    - 4mo ago

simianwords 4mo ago

This is because there's a new political divide that makes the old left vs right obsolete: it is neo-luddites vs tech optimists. It cross-cuts against the old and outdated political compass. Neo-luddites are usually the educated elite and genealogy is from old green or left politics but includes nationalists and social conservatives. I think media is broadly failing to recognise this new clan.

pesus 4mo ago
The current far right government/movement (aka conservatives) is far more in favor of AI than people opposed to them. You seem to be labeling just about everything as the opposite of what it actually is. Are you invested in or working at an AI company?
- simianwords 4mo ago
  I think your view is too simplistic and falls easily into the populist narrative so you end up mislabelling me as being invested. You are again doing the thing I flagged in my original comment - the left right or progressive/conservative axis is not useful anymore. As an example: a lot of tech CEO's were originally against Trump but ended up caving precisely because the left became anti-technology broadly. From experience and anecdotes, tech and AI optimism cross cuts into the old axis. Examples 1. third world countries are way more optimistic about AI than first world 2. many celebs (for the lack of better word) are pro AI - look at Redis, Django, NodeJS, Github 3. the existence of Effective Altruism itself should prove that this axis is useless - EA was largely leftist and support democrats while also being "pro" AI like Anthropic is mostly made from the EA cult The nomenclature also doesn't make sense to me. Why would conservatives not conserve but rather push for progress? What are conservatives conserving instead? The academic consensus is that technology determines the societal culture and if conservatives wanted to conserve anything, they would conserve technology first wouldn't they?
  - pesus 4mo ago
    None of this changes the fact that average people aren't elites, no matter how much you may try to spin it that way. And ironically, your comment and views are themselves extremely simplistic. New technology is not inherently progress. Being opposed to specific applications or misuse or consequences of a type of technology is not the same as being broadly anti-technology. A "populist narrative" is an incredibly vague oversimplification, and an ironic thing to complain about in a comment that only serves to spread the pro-elite and anti-human narrative the AI corporations are currently pushing.

socalgal2 4mo ago

I know I’ll get downvoted into oblivion but I can’t help but think data center and ai backlash manufactured or is a psi-ops campaign by Russia or China It doesn’t make any sense to me as the externalities are future not current and at no other point in time has the public cared about the future without first seeing concrete examples of harm. That hasn’t happened yet for data centers nor AI. It’s all “if, maybe, sometime in the future” People will claim real harms but the connections are spotty at best. So it feels like people are stirring the pot. like if not Russia or China then just influencers doing it for rage bait for likes and subscribes I’m not saying they are wrong, I can’t predict the future, I’m only saying it feels unusual for the reasons mentioned above

TSiege 4mo ago
Almost every major issue has bot networks from hostile countries playing both sides of any issue to intentionally cause chaos. I completely agree that russia, china, or some other country is fomenting anger here. That and the other issues aside, I think AI companies have done this to themselves. They've gone around talking about replacing all human labor and becoming the companies that control robot god's that swallow the entire economy and put everyone out of work and might destroy man kind. Well saying that is gonna make people hate them and that will find an outlet somewhere
- catapart 4mo ago
  so what makes you think that you aren't responding to a bot intending to sway your opinion by giving a shape to your preconceived notions so that your position crystallizes further, right now?
jrnichols 4mo ago
From folks I've talked to in real life, it really does seem that way. They're getting their information from Facebook but it's mixed in with the "5G towers are killing all the bees" and the usual anti-vaccine rhetoric. Seeing that erin brockovich has jumped on the anti-data center bandwagon makes it even more suspicious to me.
logicchains 4mo ago

exabrial 4mo ago

Ah the power of Social Media manipulation. https://www.axios.com/2026/06/05/china-fueling-us-data-center-resistance-ai-groups-claim https://www.axios.com/2026/06/05/china-fueling-us-data-cente... Allegedly. Another groups claims false flag operation. Ain't it great?

vinniepukh 4mo ago
you believe this?
- exabrial 4mo ago
  I'm pointing out there are two groups blaming each other. I don't know which is right. But I absolutely believe that social media's agenda is a directed agenda.
- logicchains 4mo ago
  Even OpenAI believes it, and found concrete evidence: https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-debates/ https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-...
  - mjhay 4mo ago
    wow, that’s crazy that OpenAI is saying that negative opinion against them is actually a nefarious foreign conspiracy, and does not actually indicate people hate them
mjhay 4mo ago
Ah, Axios. The same great outlet that has gotten the scoop on the Iran war ending numerous times.

rvz 4mo ago

AI is hated far more than crypto. No other technology gets as much hatred as AI is getting as the public see that as a threat to their own jobs. Of course techies here are having trouble understanding this backlash. Maybe they should read up a bit on the Unabomber Manifesto to draw parallels on the motivations of the awful attacks against CEOs recently. Just like crypto, you cannot use it to solve social problems with technical solutions. The same goes for AI as it still requires humans and trust to use it effectively. The more AI data centers get built, the more it is hated and the worse society gets with this loss of trust as more people read about more mass layoffs.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

pantsforbirds 4mo ago

I've never seen the level of anti-scientific, straight misinformation as I have with data centers. I genuinely think it's to the point where the antivaxxers have a stronger scientific backing for their stance. It did not feel organic at all. It's to the point now where that initial seeding of ideas has gained legitimate traction, but the initial burst of anti-datacenter content was wild to see in real time.

logicchains 4mo ago
It's absolutely not organic: https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-debates/ https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-...

deschutes 4mo ago

What is so objectionable about data centers anyway? That they consume utilities without employing a substantial amount of people? Compared to actual manufacturing like fabs the pollution concerns are laughable. The water use issue seems to be a wedge.

recursive 4mo ago
Data centers are where AI comes from.
esikich 4mo ago
I live in an area built on paper mills. Our rivers are trashed from the paper mills. It smells bad in areas because of paper mills. Paper mills use a lot of electricity. But people are absolutely losing their minds over the pollution from proposed data centers. I'm not sure there's a cleaner industry in existence.

e40 4mo ago

What the comments fail to point out (and I haven't read the article to find out if they address it): the number of data centers being built is based on speculation of need and is a dramatic over-estimate. It has to be. What, other than AI has happened in the last few years that would warrant that many new data centers? How do they know there will be customers for that capacity? There will not be advances in algorithms, etc that do AI much more efficiently? (We know China is making strides in that!) It's complete speculation! It's the new gold rush and everyone wants a data center. Most of these data centers might not even be built! And the ones that are, might never make any profit.

therealdrag0 4mo ago
It doesn’t “has to be”. You’re speculating just as much.
- e40 4mo ago
  I don't think so. Look at these numbers: | Year | Capacity (GW) | Construction Spending | | 2015 | 0.2 – 0.3 GW | $1.8 Billion | | 2016 | 0.3 – 0.4 GW | $2.2 Billion | | 2017 | 0.4 – 0.5 GW | $3.1 Billion | | 2018 | 0.5 – 0.6 GW | $4.5 Billion | | 2019 | 0.6 – 0.7 GW | $6.2 Billion | | 2020 | 0.8 – 1.0 GW | $8.0 Billion | | 2021 | 1.2 – 1.5 GW | $10.0 Billion | | 2022 | 2.0 – 2.5 GW | $15.0 Billion | | 2023 | 3.5 – 4.0 GW | $20.0 Billion | | 2024 | 6.4 GW | $35.0 Billion | | 2025 | 8.5 GW | $46.0 Billion | | 2026 | 13.6 GW | $50.7 Billion | 2026 figures represent full-year capacity projections and annualized construction spending rates. There is absolutely no way that increase was planned due to precisely planned for capacity. It's speculation.
  - therealdrag0 4mo ago
    What I meant to push back on is that speculation doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It doesn’t “have to be” an “over-estimate” even if it’s obviously speculation. Any multiyear investment that depends on future demand requires speculation. Shrug. I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s part of running a business and address a market. For all we know it’s an under-estimate.

bamboozled 4mo ago

"Voted backlash", nothing will change.

teravor 4mo ago

even if datacenters aren't good for the communities there are in, it would be much worse if China advances in AI faster. this is one of the core flaws in democracy, while the popularity contest generally curbs blatant abuse (also note how even that fails miserably when the electorate groups start to hate each other), the vast majority of people have no real way to judge the impacts of non-trivial decisions and judgement doesn't even need to come with certainty, just knowing which risks are worth it. voters will never get it right. and in the information age, democratic sabotage is many times easier than informing a public that in most cases has no interest in being informed when the group think/herd instincts are triggered. i suspect democracy only worked well thus far because it was never truly real. media was always concentrated and there were no non-democratic peers. this is no longer the case. when the media was concentrated democracy was just an emergent properly of media dynamics. now it's chaotic and subject to external targeted perturbation.

ok123456 4mo ago
I think China "advancing" faster is better. Hoarding some magic numbers on a hard drive isn't a sound business plan, and shouldn't be what we're betting the farm (literally) on.
- teravor 4mo ago
  they are only releasing open weight models to damage the closed off US AI corpos. while the next GLM model may get a similar open release, I doubt the one after that will.
  - ok123456 4mo ago
    Or maybe they have different incentives and don't see providing an inference as a service for the entire world as a viable business model. Open source isn't a zero-sum game.
    - Espressosaurus 4mo ago
      Look at which models are getting open-weights vs. which ones aren't. That tap can be shut off at any time and it's already being shut off for their biggest models.

miiiiiike 4mo ago

It’s reaching the point of absurdity in my area. People are bringing “All data centers are flammable” signs to city meetings. A plot of land that’s already zoned for the heaviest of industrial activities, is across the street from a dump, 3 miles from an airport, 16 miles from a nuclear generating station, and in a region with good climate, and no water crunch is a pretty good place for a data center. Facts don’t matter, it’s a religious fight. Even if you provide numbers specific to the local area there’s no way to pierce the rhetoric. Too much land? I added up lol the land used by the 10+ golf courses in the area. Dwarfs the proposal. Too much water? I called the head of the parks department and asked them how much water the golf courses that they operate use each year. Massive. Regional electricity costs going up? Our nuclear generating station already sells 80-85% of all power generated wholesale to other markets. Data centers are loud? I measured the noise outside of my house. I live on a busy street. It was much louder than the viral videos going around Facebook with titles like “Data center noise from my porch SCARY MUST WATCH”. I don’t know about all proposed data centers everywhere, but the one they’re eyeing to build in my backyard is fine by me. I lived in Northern Virginia for years. Data centers are everywhere. It’s really hard to explain that centers aren’t bad and are actually far more efficient than the alternatives. Just don’t run them on coal, natural gas, or the souls of orphans. And don’t rely exclusively on evaporative cooling if it’s in the desert. They’re having fun treating tech people like villains. It was the same or worse with bankers back in 2008-2010. Anything I have to say, any data provided, any comparisons made, are biassed because I “use data centers”. When I explain that they use data centers as well, I get the finger. When I talked to an anti data center family member who runs a local Facebook news group (5,000+ subscribers) they just kept sending me Google AI summaries as counter points… My god. I don’t even use gen AI. People want to enjoy the benefits of progress and data centers while still being loudly “moral”. All of this on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. How many data centers are involved to get a post from poster to viewer? 2? 3? 8? A bad data center project proposal somewhere should not mean opposition to data center projects everywhere.

spencerflem 4mo ago
One refrigerator sized rack at a datacenter takes as much power as 150 homes, and they’re using it for technology that disempowers and annoys people. It’s pretty obviously offensive. All for rezoning golf courses too

irusensei 4mo ago

This goes to every LinkedIn brain idiot spouting recycled nonsense about the new Industrial Revolution and that white collar jobs are going away. These blabbering idiots never read a story book to understand the time period, that people displaced by industrialization were uneducated illiterate farm workers in a period in time before democracy. Jump today most countries stable enough to build infrastructure are democracies and the white collar people you are demonizing do vote and that immense investment in infrastructure is not really easy to relocate.

metaopai 4mo ago

Datacenters are a hedge the investor class is pushing and it's not really needed. Once you realize: 1) LLM = CPU 2) Session Context = L1, L2, L3, CPU Cache the entire AI industry is operating within the CPU cache of the LLM provider this is why cost moves quadratically, increases noise - signal ration, regenerative feedback loop, it dilutes the user narration, and it actually creates an architectural induce hallucination. We've literally solved this problem in the 1960's with a memory architecture: the OS has a memory controller, tasked with taking data from persistant structure storage (HD) loading into CPU Cache and the CPU computers, the output is stored in RAM and then moved into HD. this is required on all AI applications, what the industry has done, is supplement a RAG which is summarizing context, however the entire context summarized chain is still being processed by the LLM. if you employ a well sustain memory architecture you can retrieve the context you only need to feed to the llm. reduce token cost and then reduce energy therefore less demand of datacenters. checkout my article and what i built metaop.ai it's a humble promotion but no one cares about ai memory. https://x.com/metaopai/status/2070187664192524528 https://x.com/metaopai/status/2070187664192524528

duxup 4mo ago

It’s so strange, we’ve been building data centers for ages without being a jerk about it…

VaderAi 4mo ago

If data centres use gas turbine engines they would be far better off to not affect power in those areas of communities

qsxfthnkp2322 4mo ago

Maybe we should charge data centers double the tax rate so that they can fund that universal welfare and healthcare all the ai ceos keep talking about when we all are out of work. There no reason to give them tax breaks. They don’t do anything of substance to the local economy.