Re: Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

The disparity is that older data centers were for storing and serving data. They have a lot of bandwidth and storage, but aren't consuming much energy. Plus, they are there to provide quicker access to data, to provide a service to actual people.

New AI data centers are obviously compute-oriented instead. That means they consume a lot more power, like hundreds of megawatts. For perspective, on average a U.S. household uses only 1.2KW. Because of this, cooling needs are significantly increased, and while water usage is often overblown, noise volume is a major problem. At (edit) 10m, it often exceeds the 90dB threshold for hearing loss.

Then there's the fact that millions of dollars of GPUs are inside these things, so security means lots of bright lights at all times of day.

These are just problems with the physical presence of a data center, not to mention the electric bill hikes, land value loss, environmental effects, etc. And there's no obvious positives to one going up. No new jobs. No tax money because it's often elided with incentives from bribing local officials.

With all the negatives and seemingly no benefits, ask yourself who wants these data centers, and why? If the only way to improve AI is using more and more compute like this, what is the end-game?

BearOso, 9 hours ago