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I don't know what DC Blox was going to put in this particular datacenter, but they are a "traditional" colocation datacenter company. Maybe this one would've be

• ElevenLathe 2mo ago
  I wonder if this will incentivize pushing compute back toward the user instead of in big centralized facilities, sonething like a repeat of the PC revolution. Or will it just incentivize harsher treatment of noncompliant parts of the population? Or just pushing these things far from urban areas where they probably should have been already? Probably a bit of each, and some more I'm not thinking of.
  • junofan 2mo ago
    It’s going to the high frontier. Orbital/lunar. It’s too important not to harden.
    • Gigachad 2mo ago
      This is an investor scam and not a real proposal.
  • no-name-here 2mo ago
    > the user instead of in big centralized facilities Although that would be exponentially worse in terms of electricity and resource use, etc. - instead 1 TPU handling x,000 customers per month, now you need to build and power n,000 separate devices, where the vast majority of them are idle the vast majority of the time, and even then without all of the more efficient power, batching, etc that DCs offer. > urban areas The photo at the very top of the OP article shows a very low-density area. If someone was expecting to see urban-type density, it isn’t in the location shown in the photo.
    • selfhoster1312 2mo ago
      That's working under the (imo wrong) assumption that LLMs are what we need/want. First, because pushing toward the user can happen as shared hosting in your municipality and doesn't have to be in every home. Second, because if you take slop, adtech, and surveillance out of the equation, the material impact is several orders of magnitude less than what's being built today. Or for what it's worth, several orders of magnitude less than what's already built in terms of DC capacity.
      • no-name-here 2mo ago
        > shared hosting in your municipality Wouldn't that be even worse in terms of NIMBYism? 1. Every single municipality would have AI data center "hosting in your municipality". 2. You'd have to majorly overbuild every municipality's capacity, as usage would likely have peak hours and 'dead' hours each day based on work, sleep, etc. if usage is local to that municipality. > several orders of magnitude less than what's already built in terms of DC capacity. Are you saying you believe already-built data centers are 100 times (2 orders of magnitude) as much as needed? I presume this is not what you think will actually happen in the real world though?
        • selfhoster1312 2mo ago
          1. In the scenario i'm mentioning, there's no LLMs being deployed at all for end users. Social networks, netflix-style video and email fits in a single rack for thousands of people (tens of thousands?). 2. Yes. That's already the case. Today a single smartphone has enough CPU/RAM to host email services for many thousands of users. A single Netflix OCA 2U serves 400Gbit/s of video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28584738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28584738 The only reason we had huge DCs before LLMs was so Google/Facebook could spread their surveillance/adtech empire. Nothing of that scale is needed to provide useful services to end users. Framasoft, the biggest non-profit host (a french FLOSS/education NGO) serves millions of users with dozens of services on 68 servers and 800TB storage: https://framapiaf.org/@Framasoft/115767718097945194 https://framapiaf.org/@Framasoft/115767718097945194
• tw04 2mo ago
  Given that after the advent of virtualization we had a glut of datacenter space, and then the crypto bros started buying them up to mine: do we actually need more datacenters? Or do we just need regulators to say things like: mining crypto to facilitate money laundering and ransomware isn’t welcome here?
  • JuniperMesos 2mo ago
    The entire point of cryptocurrency is to be money that is independent of any government's ability to enforce its laws. I would personally vote against polticians who enacted those kinds of regulations; and if they passed anyway I would attempt to mine and use cryptocurrency in ways that circumvented the regulations banning me from doing so.
    • bruce511 2mo ago
      >> The entire point of cryptocurrency is to be money that is independent of any government's ability to enforce its laws. Thats exactly correct. The killer app for crypto is criminal enterprise. Yes there are other niches, but nothing that would sustain the industry. Passing a regulation regarding mining would be difficult to enforce. It's impossible to know what a GPU inside the data center is doing. At this point the industry is legit, even promoted by individuals in govt (who overtly sell access (cough bribe) using it. So no, you don't need to worry, there's no risk of regulations like this anywhere soon.
  • esikich 2mo ago
    Virtualization uses standard rack mount servers, crypto does not. The machinery they use are completely different.
  • mixdup 2mo ago
    >Given that after the advent of virtualization we had a glut of datacenter space Virtualization isn't new, it's a technology from the 2000s. I think we are well beyond absorbing any spare capacity that the efficiencies of virtualization squeezed out at this point
• RandallBrown 2mo ago
  > That's the unfortunate thing about the current climate around datacenters I always get a chuckle when I see people complaining about datacenters on the Internet.
  • arcanemachiner 2mo ago
    I like having my garbage picked up at the curb, but I wouldn't want to live downwind from a landfill. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-somewhat#origin https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
    • no-name-here 2mo ago
      I think that’s how DCs mark an exponential growth in NIMBYism and its acceptance - we’re already seeing city-wide, county-wide, even state-wide bans, even in states where much of the state is very low density. If this kind of NIMBYism becomes accepted, I expect to see similar broader bans against multi-family housing, mass-transit, etc.
      • wyre 2mo ago
        Based on what? Slippery slope fallacy? There are real reasons why people don’t want their community to have a DC, which are wildly different than the entitled NIMBYism that isn’t against multi-family housing and mass transit. Put a data center in Atherton and I’ll change my mind.
        • no-name-here 2mo ago
          > which are wildly different Many of the same reasons used against dense housing, mass transit, and solar/wind turbines are used against DCs - such as claims: * That it would be too much for the existing grid to handle * That it would be too much for existing other utilities to handle * That it would be too close to x other thing (zoo, etc) * Some say it won't be visually appealing * That it would change the nature of the existing area * That there isn't enough groundwater * etc. > Put a data center in Atherton and I’ll change my mind. Wouldn't the complaints then be that a DC there would spoil the area's natural beauty (and would be too much for the electric grid there, etc)? Or if the DC were located similarly to how this one is, there would be the same complaints as OP case - see the photo at the very top of the OP article - it shows a very low-density area. If someone was expecting to see urban-type density, it isn’t in the location shown in the photo. >> even state-wide bans, even in states where much of the state is very low density > Put a data center in Atherton and I’ll change my mind. 1. You say you would change your mind in that particular place, but are you arguing that others wouldn't NIMBY against Atherton if one were proposed there? Everyone has different ideas about where they believe should be NIMBYd, including because people have different 'backyards'? And I presume your 'backyard' is tens, hundreds, or thousands of miles from the OP DC location? 2. With state-level bans already existing in states where much of the state is very low-density, the evidence seems to show the opposite of your claim that if a very low-density area were picked then it wouldn't face a ban.
• magicalist 2mo ago
  > I don't know what DC Blox was going to put in this particular datacenter, but they are a "traditional" colocation datacenter company. Maybe this one would've been superdense GPUs... 50 MW for 69k square feet definitely points to relatively dense GPUs. Regardless of what DC Blox might have built five years ago, everyone knows what kind of datacenter is going to be booked solid right now.
  • JonathonW 2mo ago
    The initial phase of construction (what DC Blox initially applied for permits for) is for 69k square feet at 10 MW. But that is only a corner of the property that DC Blox acquired. Other documents filed during the permitting process include their long-term plan for the property, and that's where the 50 MW number comes from-- two buildings totaling 345k square feet of data center space, a 72k square foot electrical substation, plus support facilities (parking, guard houses, etc.).
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  • walrus01 2mo ago
    As modern datacenters go, 69,000 sq ft for a whole facility is REALLY small. Only some portion of that 69k is going to be actual conditioned space once you subtract all the ancillary services, things like security office, staging area, bathrooms, electrical breaker panel rooms, etc. It's almost like boutique/niche sized compared to the things that are going up in Texas, Indiana, a few other places. I know people building hyperscale size stuff that would almost call 69k sq ft hobby sized.
• tptacek 2mo ago
  The funny thing about data center concerns in Chicagoland, where I'm hearing it, is that data centers are better neighbors than almost any other commercial real estate. The data centers in Aurora are surrounded with prairie green space; everything else, including the nicest office buildings, are a sea of eyesore asphalt parking lots. I get there can be real concerns, locally-specific, about energy usage (again: they depend on where you are). But data centers by themselves intrinsically seem like very good neighbors, much better than warehouses and strip malls.
  • gensym 2mo ago
    Strip malls at least offer something to the local residents. I recall from my time in Chicago that some of the best immigrant-family-run restaurants were in strip malls on the northwest side. Warehouses, though, are worse than data centers in that they bring a lot of traffic to the area. (I currently live in Riverside Country, CA which may be the warehouse capital of the country). But if we're being honest, most people see warehouses as a way to get cheap stuff to them, which they like and data centers as a way to make them unemployable, which they don't like so much.
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  • mixdup 2mo ago
    >But data centers by themselves intrinsically seem like very good neighbors, much better than warehouses and strip malls. It totally depends on the developer. Ask someone in Memphis about data centers and they are unlikely to mention energy usage/costs or water usage and will be hyper focused on being a bad neighbor like air pollution and noise For sure DCs can, and probably mostly are built in a way that if there's a good thicket of trees between you and the DC you wouldn't know it's there, but there are plenty of bad actors building things that ruin the area and that's what gets all the press
  • gilthelander 2mo ago
    [flagged]
• m463 2mo ago
  > this would've been a project that 5 years ago no one would've batted an eye over I wonder if these "classic projects" have been morphing into jet engine projects as energy use vs energy available have changed. personally datacenters have affected you and me: ssds, hard disks and memory are super expensive; electricity costs have gone up
• veunes 2mo ago
  Maybe, but "this would probably have been fine five years ago" is not a very reassuring standard. The physical impact matters more than whether the racks are running email servers or training models.
  • esikich 2mo ago
    A traditional colo DC isn't running super power dense GPUs and doesn't use water cooling. These exist in whatever city you live in and no one knows where they are because there is no impact. They are completely different beasts.
  • inigyou 2mo ago
    They're not going to run email servers. They will run AI.
• oatmeal1 2mo ago
  > There's still a need for growth in just traditional datacenters hosting things like your email and Netflix, not just AI, and those projects are going to get swallowed up in the AI hubbub Growth in almost any datacenters is not worth the environmental cost, and even the benefits are dubious (e.g. more datacenters to host Netflix content is a net negative if it means people spend more time sedentary indoors).
• ricardobayes 2mo ago
  I think this general situation has been on peoples' minds since Erin Bronkovich. Gosh that movie came out 26 years ago.
• vidarh 2mo ago
  We've "imported" this concern to the UK too, largely driven by the same issues seemingly whipped up by US lack of regulation much more than local examples (that's not to say there have been no cases of bad buildouts here). Many of the people now extremely opposed to data centres seem to believe the UK didn't have any data centres recently, never mind that you can pass by data centres in e.g. London Docklands and mistake it for an office building. In some cases they are in a subset of floors of office buildings. I'm all for regulating them so they need to account for externalities, but the blind opposition to them is frustrating, not least because it means there's no pressure to deal with the actual regulatory gaps since the focus ends up being on trying to block projects.
  • selfhoster1312 2mo ago
    > deal with the actual regulatory gaps since the focus ends up being on trying to block projects Two counterpoints: - the problem is not in "regulatory" gaps, but in how regulations are actually applied; regulation is usually good for protecting the environment and the neighbors... the question is more why regulations never apply to billionaires? to politicians' friends? - for any "gap" that you'd like addressed, how do you see yourself tilting the balance of power if not with a strong opposition? do you think people in power care at all about a mildly-displeased middle class citizen who'd like to amend a text? no, they only care about an angry mob and then might try to make concessions
    • vidarh 2mo ago
      > - the problem is not in "regulatory" gaps, but in how regulations are actually applied; regulation is usually good for protecting the environment and the neighbors... the question is more why regulations never apply to billionaires? to politicians' friends? It may be in both, but there certainly are gaps in regulation as well. E.g. a new concern here is the effect on energy prices, where regulation to force large data centre projects to fund sufficient improvements to energy infrastructure would address it. But sure, it won't help if the regulations aren't enforced. That's seemingly a bigger concern in the US than in the UK. E.g. we have at least two projects in London alone where waste heat from data centres will be fed into district heating loops. Using the planning process as a means to mitigate concerns with these projects works when the will is there and the regulations allow for it. > - for any "gap" that you'd like addressed, how do you see yourself tilting the balance of power if not with a strong opposition? do you think people in power care at all about a mildly-displeased middle class citizen who'd like to amend a text? no, they only care about an angry mob and then might try to make concessions The point is that if the angry mob points at X while the problem is Y, the angry mob isn't likely to get anything resolved even if/when politicians are sympathetic. If anything else, if your cynical about politicians: If a mob is focused on the wrong target, how likely do you think it is that a politician will try to find a way to take advantage of that rather than patiently explaining why they're focused on the wrong issue? The problem is not more data centres. The problem is noise, water, energy. That problem is both not unique to data centres, and also not something that is an issue with all data centre projects. The right way of addressing that is to ensure that externalities are addressed and mitigation paid for irrespective of what gets built.
• inigyou 2mo ago
  Even the traditional DC companies are going all-in on AI.
• bjacobel 2mo ago
  Is there a need? Or a want?
• guywithahat 2mo ago
  > and Elon absolutely screwed Memphis By bringing jobs to a struggling city in their industrial district?
• spopejoy 2mo ago
  "Won't somebody think of the poor non-AI datacenters?" ... said nobody, until now