4 ms·

> I think there’s a lot of social media influence from nation state competitors going on to try and slow SOTA development in the US. This comes cross as unbeli

by gortok 2mo ago

> I think there’s a lot of social media influence from nation state competitors going on to try and slow SOTA development in the US. This comes cross as unbelievable, and at worst a fantastical statement, as someone who lives in Northern Virginia and is effectively watching the Datacenter battle unfold from the front lines, and dealing with the local politics and electricity costs rising at a precipitous rate. Our electricity bill has doubled. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors want to erect “Statue of Liberty” sized power transmission lines, and those that want data centers are doing their damndest to somehow claim that they’re not responsible for the rise in the cost of utilities and shouldn’t be held responsible for it. Part of the reason people care about Datacenters now is that they’re starting to litter the landscape, take resources from local municipalities, and raise costs for everyone involved, whereas previously there were not enough of them to really move the needle as being a problem. Folks care because their bottom line is impacted in a time when it’s already hard to make ends meet every month due to rising costs of food, gas, and utilities, not because of some unnamed boogeyman in the form of a “nation state competitor”.

RajT88 2mo ago
They're building a mass of DC's near me as well in northern IL (not quite as many as by you). I see a lot of weird stuff on social media - people inactive for years all of a sudden becoming super-activists and posting non-stop anti-DC content. Nearly identical content to what's being pushed by a bunch of faceless accounts named like "Water4All","Nature Reign" - something vaguely environmental sounding. Talking points like: "We should call data centers what they actually are: surveillance centers designed to put us all in a digital prison by 2030" It's fishy. People aren't quite showing up and saying the same things at city council meetings, but the local city anti-DC group is full of people reposting this stuff. One clickbait article in particular, "there's no such thing as a closed loop system". There's real concerns with the data centers. But, the opposition to them doesn't feel entirely organic (imo).
- milkshakes 2mo ago
  nyt is no fan of AI, but they cover this: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-data-centers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wVA.dGxT.KNRoAXHZ8TlN&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-...
  - tsunamifury 2mo ago
    Read the top comment. The story never questions if they are right, simply tried to smear the argument based on the sources.
    - milkshakes 2mo ago
      what top comment?
- fragmede 2mo ago
  It's almost as if Russia or China wants to see America not succeed.
  - yellowapple 2mo ago
    And at least one of those two countries is also building datacenters in droves and would have a vested interest in hindering foreign competition.
- watwut 2mo ago
  > We should call data centers what they actually are: surveillance centers designed to put us all in a digital prison by 2030 I mean, isnt that what Karp, Thiel are openly saying and one of the things Antropic doom trolls about?
  - RajT88 2mo ago
    Yeah, but the thing is - those guys aren't using the majority of data center capacity out there. The Anti-DC crowd doesn't appreciate that the surveillance state is coming with our without all these DC's being built. That is going to get hosted some where, some way. The fix is regulatory and political.
    - watwut 2mo ago
      They cant make regulations. They have only limited political power, Karp and Thiel certainly have more. So, what you say amounts to "it is true, but do nothing at all". What they do is "do the thing we can do". You, CEOs and this crowd all agree. It ia just that some think it is a good thing (CEOs), anything except impossible is pointless (you).
      - RajT88 2mo ago
        You're putting words in my mouth. Don't. The government has the kind of power needed to rein in all of these privacy issues by regulating big tech. It will be difficult, but more difficult things have been achieved in our lifetime. Join the EFF. Contact your congress people. What I'm actually saying is the anti-DC people are trying to solve a societal level problem only peripherally related to the thing they are trying to ban at a local level. That seems a lot harder than getting congress to care about privacy issues.
        watwut 2mo ago
        Isnt comgress partizan locked and powerless? All power is in president.
- lightedman 2mo ago
  "there's no such thing as a closed loop system" That's not incorrect though; you're still needing to shed the heat energy SOMEWHERE. Thermodynamics alone dictates that basic fact. You may not waste the cooling solution but all that excessive GPU heat is going to need to go somewhere - and the only place it ultimately goes is right into the environment. Ever stand a bit away from a campfire because you got too warm, only to have the wind hit it and blow hot air over you? Same thought exercise applies here.
  - RajT88 2mo ago
    Except that's not what the article is about. What it's about is this: This one data center in Ohio claimed to be a closed loop system, but then dumped their blowdown directly into the water table or something and now everyone's tap water is weird. That is miles away from how your average "closed loop" system operates. There should be accountability for DC operators, but that's not what people take away from the article. What people take away from the article is, "All the data center companies lie, and are the worst sorts of damn dirty polluters and they will ruin your town".
mindslight 2mo ago
> Folks care because their bottom line is impacted in a time when it’s already hard to make ends meet every month due to rising costs of food, gas, and utilities, not because of some unnamed boogeyman in the form of a “nation state competitor” While agreeing with where you're coming from, including this, it is also worth nothing that there is truth to what you're rejecting as well. Our longstanding unsolved domestic problems are fertile ground for nation state competitors to foment discontent, gain oppositional mindshare, and ultimately harm our overall position. The elites seem to think these problems can just be ignored or swept under the rug, when in reality the frustration grows until it boils over into highly destructive self-owns. We're already seeing this actively play out on a grand scale with general politics, but it can certainly happen in more specific ways that target things like data centers. To be industrially competitive we need to fix our longstanding domestic problems that fall on individuals, rather than merely ignoring them. In the case of data centers - lack of effective environmental regulations around air and sound pollution, complete inability for municipalities to regulate the operations of something after it's been built, and a shortage of infrastructure that's now been privatized for use by the highest bidder. Plus that general affordability crisis you touched upon, of course. Nobody likes the feeling that an appendage of a trillion dollar company can come to their city, wave around the promise of everything-bubble money, and make it so their own individual voice is meaningless.
- strictnein 2mo ago
  Exactly. Russia has been doing it for decades and it would be foolish to assume China didn't learn from them. Thomas Rid's "Active Measures" covers this in detail, and it's somewhat maddening to read, because it details how much of the civil strife we've experienced that was exacerbated by their actions. https://www.amazon.com/Active-Measures-History-Disinformation-Political-ebook/dp/B07RYGH7YN/ https://www.amazon.com/Active-Measures-History-Disinformatio...
  - izacus 2mo ago
    Blaming Russia (and China) in most cases is a cheap cop out to try to deflect, hide and minimize the actual grievances of people living in USA. Yes, there's propaganda and most of it doesn't reach the Americans. It's downright insulting to claim their hurts are something that countries on the other side of the world invented.
enraged_camel 2mo ago
>> This comes cross as unbelievable, and at worst a fantastical statement You can read some of the recent reporting here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-data-centers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-...
duped 2mo ago
> They’re not responsible for the rise in the cost of utilities and shouldn’t be held responsible for it. One thing that has near radicalized me is the rampant dishonesty on this subject. Data center builders/users have the audacity to tell me that my rates aren't going up, but also if they are it isn't their fault, but even if it is their fault they will actually lower my rates in the long term (but somehow, never promising to pay us back for the damage in the short term). It really, really bothers me how slimy the people doing this are.
yellowapple 2mo ago
> those that want data centers are doing their damndest to somehow claim that they’re not responsible for the rise in the cost of utilities and shouldn’t be held responsible for it Because they're not. That's a utility billing issue. The power company can charge residential customers lower rates than it does commercial/industrial customers. If it's not doing that, then you're better off taking it up with them (or quite possibly: whichever regulatory body is hindering their ability to do that).

by gortok 2mo ago

RajT88 2mo ago

They're building a mass of DC's near me as well in northern IL (not quite as many as by you). I see a lot of weird stuff on social media - people inactive for years all of a sudden becoming super-activists and posting non-stop anti-DC content. Nearly identical content to what's being pushed by a bunch of faceless accounts named like "Water4All","Nature Reign" - something vaguely environmental sounding. Talking points like: "We should call data centers what they actually are: surveillance centers designed to put us all in a digital prison by 2030" It's fishy. People aren't quite showing up and saying the same things at city council meetings, but the local city anti-DC group is full of people reposting this stuff. One clickbait article in particular, "there's no such thing as a closed loop system". There's real concerns with the data centers. But, the opposition to them doesn't feel entirely organic (imo).

milkshakes 2mo ago
nyt is no fan of AI, but they cover this: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-data-centers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wVA.dGxT.KNRoAXHZ8TlN&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-...
- tsunamifury 2mo ago
  Read the top comment. The story never questions if they are right, simply tried to smear the argument based on the sources.
  - milkshakes 2mo ago
    what top comment?
fragmede 2mo ago
It's almost as if Russia or China wants to see America not succeed.
- yellowapple 2mo ago
  And at least one of those two countries is also building datacenters in droves and would have a vested interest in hindering foreign competition.
watwut 2mo ago
> We should call data centers what they actually are: surveillance centers designed to put us all in a digital prison by 2030 I mean, isnt that what Karp, Thiel are openly saying and one of the things Antropic doom trolls about?
- RajT88 2mo ago
  Yeah, but the thing is - those guys aren't using the majority of data center capacity out there. The Anti-DC crowd doesn't appreciate that the surveillance state is coming with our without all these DC's being built. That is going to get hosted some where, some way. The fix is regulatory and political.
  - watwut 2mo ago
    They cant make regulations. They have only limited political power, Karp and Thiel certainly have more. So, what you say amounts to "it is true, but do nothing at all". What they do is "do the thing we can do". You, CEOs and this crowd all agree. It ia just that some think it is a good thing (CEOs), anything except impossible is pointless (you).
    - RajT88 2mo ago
      You're putting words in my mouth. Don't. The government has the kind of power needed to rein in all of these privacy issues by regulating big tech. It will be difficult, but more difficult things have been achieved in our lifetime. Join the EFF. Contact your congress people. What I'm actually saying is the anti-DC people are trying to solve a societal level problem only peripherally related to the thing they are trying to ban at a local level. That seems a lot harder than getting congress to care about privacy issues.
      - watwut 2mo ago
        Isnt comgress partizan locked and powerless? All power is in president.
lightedman 2mo ago
"there's no such thing as a closed loop system" That's not incorrect though; you're still needing to shed the heat energy SOMEWHERE. Thermodynamics alone dictates that basic fact. You may not waste the cooling solution but all that excessive GPU heat is going to need to go somewhere - and the only place it ultimately goes is right into the environment. Ever stand a bit away from a campfire because you got too warm, only to have the wind hit it and blow hot air over you? Same thought exercise applies here.
- RajT88 2mo ago
  Except that's not what the article is about. What it's about is this: This one data center in Ohio claimed to be a closed loop system, but then dumped their blowdown directly into the water table or something and now everyone's tap water is weird. That is miles away from how your average "closed loop" system operates. There should be accountability for DC operators, but that's not what people take away from the article. What people take away from the article is, "All the data center companies lie, and are the worst sorts of damn dirty polluters and they will ruin your town".

mindslight 2mo ago

> Folks care because their bottom line is impacted in a time when it’s already hard to make ends meet every month due to rising costs of food, gas, and utilities, not because of some unnamed boogeyman in the form of a “nation state competitor” While agreeing with where you're coming from, including this, it is also worth nothing that there is truth to what you're rejecting as well. Our longstanding unsolved domestic problems are fertile ground for nation state competitors to foment discontent, gain oppositional mindshare, and ultimately harm our overall position. The elites seem to think these problems can just be ignored or swept under the rug, when in reality the frustration grows until it boils over into highly destructive self-owns. We're already seeing this actively play out on a grand scale with general politics, but it can certainly happen in more specific ways that target things like data centers. To be industrially competitive we need to fix our longstanding domestic problems that fall on individuals, rather than merely ignoring them. In the case of data centers - lack of effective environmental regulations around air and sound pollution, complete inability for municipalities to regulate the operations of something after it's been built, and a shortage of infrastructure that's now been privatized for use by the highest bidder. Plus that general affordability crisis you touched upon, of course. Nobody likes the feeling that an appendage of a trillion dollar company can come to their city, wave around the promise of everything-bubble money, and make it so their own individual voice is meaningless.

strictnein 2mo ago
Exactly. Russia has been doing it for decades and it would be foolish to assume China didn't learn from them. Thomas Rid's "Active Measures" covers this in detail, and it's somewhat maddening to read, because it details how much of the civil strife we've experienced that was exacerbated by their actions. https://www.amazon.com/Active-Measures-History-Disinformation-Political-ebook/dp/B07RYGH7YN/ https://www.amazon.com/Active-Measures-History-Disinformatio...
- izacus 2mo ago
  Blaming Russia (and China) in most cases is a cheap cop out to try to deflect, hide and minimize the actual grievances of people living in USA. Yes, there's propaganda and most of it doesn't reach the Americans. It's downright insulting to claim their hurts are something that countries on the other side of the world invented.

enraged_camel 2mo ago

>> This comes cross as unbelievable, and at worst a fantastical statement You can read some of the recent reporting here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-data-centers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-...

duped 2mo ago

> They’re not responsible for the rise in the cost of utilities and shouldn’t be held responsible for it. One thing that has near radicalized me is the rampant dishonesty on this subject. Data center builders/users have the audacity to tell me that my rates aren't going up, but also if they are it isn't their fault, but even if it is their fault they will actually lower my rates in the long term (but somehow, never promising to pay us back for the damage in the short term). It really, really bothers me how slimy the people doing this are.

yellowapple 2mo ago

> those that want data centers are doing their damndest to somehow claim that they’re not responsible for the rise in the cost of utilities and shouldn’t be held responsible for it Because they're not. That's a utility billing issue. The power company can charge residential customers lower rates than it does commercial/industrial customers. If it's not doing that, then you're better off taking it up with them (or quite possibly: whichever regulatory body is hindering their ability to do that).