the money being talked about is so large that eventually the lobbyists will get their checks and the politicians will pass laws forbidding local scrutiny of data centers
It’s interesting how many more community reported data centres there are compared to operational and proposed. I’m wondering if this is because of over reporting? Like - does the public mistake any new, big building as a data centre, or are the other categories under reported (or something else)?
AI is good, but the impact of data centers on the environment cannot be ignored. Over a longer time scale, AI is just one wave, while the environment will take much longer to recover.
This is about " major AI-focused and hyperscale data centers running AI workloads". Not any random one.
It also accepts user reporting of new developments, breaks them down in several categories (tracking proposed, operational, under construction, etc).
And eventually it can also track more information about them, specific to their cases (amount of water and energy used, pollution reports, etc). E.g. it has information like "1.2 GW AI factory broke ground May 12, 2026 at Eastgate Commerce Center (Little Blue Pkwy & MO-78). 400 acres, up to 10 buildings. ~1,200 construction jobs / ~130 full-time. Multi-billion-dollar investment; $150bn taxable industrial development revenue bonds secured." for some.
AI compute is a major emerging export industry that the U.S. could become the global leader in. Strong First Amendment protections, due process, and limits on arbitrary government control also make the U.S. uniquely well-suited for AI, unlike, let's say, manufacturing, where authoritarian states seem to have an advantage.
People have gotten so intense with the anti-AI sentiment that I hope this doesn't end up guiding people to places where they can exercise violence "for a just cause".
I don’t get the issue with the data centers, maybe instead of looking at just the data centers they should look at all the rest of the land in the US along with it and see how truly small these things are.
Opposition data center is stupid. We need as many data centers as possible. If you actually want to make a difference how about you mandate that they all come with their own solar and battery power packs. When the hell did the left become so regressive?
I love this. Yeah there's some FUD out there about water usage and whatnot, but using the internet to spread actual awareness about local concerns is a fine demonstration of free speech at work.
If slop is more expensive to produce, maybe there will be less of it clogging up the digital commons.
Data centers are massive consumers of water. There are closed loop designs that technically use less water but they: A) Make up less than 10% of data centers; B) Cost much more upfront; C) Require massive investment in waste water treatment. These designs still need to "bleed the lines" once a month and get rid of sludge that is now full of anti-freeze, anti-fungals, and PFAS
It is not at all inaccurate to say data center consumption of water is a huge concern. Too many on HN seem to be puppetting industry lines without realizing it. Closed loop systems are still uncommon and come with their own problems.
What makes a data center an 'AI data center' vs other kinds? I am sure that certain workloads are better suited for a particular server rack vs another; but can't a data center built for other computing needs also do AI and vice-versa?
Is there a map of munitions plants and spy centers and other facilities whose sole purpose is to active oppress, harm and outright kill people?
Or the offices of ads agencies defacing countless public spaces, injecting noise into every activity and wasting billions of hours combined of everybody's life?
I started a project similar to this early this year [1] when I got frustrated with the lack of decent free resources documenting data centre build out. The plan was to focus on AI build out specifically, the ones costing billions and the recipients of all the Nvidia chips rather than the boring 'normal' datacenters.
I also wanted to add useful and accurate tools on things like local noise, water or grid impact. In addition to actually monitoring progress via satellite imagery and building a basic graph model for filling in missing attributes.
The reason why I stopped was that I significantly underestimated the effort required to complete such a project to the standards that I wanted to. As you can probably tell the site itself is AI assisted but all of the information was collected by hand which just takes time that I no longer had (~30 mins per site). The only way this would have made sense was as research project or something which sadly didn't line up.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 55.1 ms ] threadie it is in the economic interest of the writers to tap into (and foment) the FUD around "data centers."
https://www.datacentermap.com/datacenters/
Not being negative. But isn’t there existing highly reliable data that already exists for this?
It also accepts user reporting of new developments, breaks them down in several categories (tracking proposed, operational, under construction, etc).
And eventually it can also track more information about them, specific to their cases (amount of water and energy used, pollution reports, etc). E.g. it has information like "1.2 GW AI factory broke ground May 12, 2026 at Eastgate Commerce Center (Little Blue Pkwy & MO-78). 400 acres, up to 10 buildings. ~1,200 construction jobs / ~130 full-time. Multi-billion-dollar investment; $150bn taxable industrial development revenue bonds secured." for some.
Brockovich is an environmental activist. Her project uses the public as a source of data for the map ("community reports")
DCR does not
If slop is more expensive to produce, maybe there will be less of it clogging up the digital commons.
It is not at all inaccurate to say data center consumption of water is a huge concern. Too many on HN seem to be puppetting industry lines without realizing it. Closed loop systems are still uncommon and come with their own problems.
Trump has been neutering the EPA for a reason.
I don't know if HN is really naive or just pretending.
Or the offices of ads agencies defacing countless public spaces, injecting noise into every activity and wasting billions of hours combined of everybody's life?
I also wanted to add useful and accurate tools on things like local noise, water or grid impact. In addition to actually monitoring progress via satellite imagery and building a basic graph model for filling in missing attributes.
The reason why I stopped was that I significantly underestimated the effort required to complete such a project to the standards that I wanted to. As you can probably tell the site itself is AI assisted but all of the information was collected by hand which just takes time that I no longer had (~30 mins per site). The only way this would have made sense was as research project or something which sadly didn't line up.
[1] https://investigationsofadifferentkind.com/