Are you for or against Data Centers?

[danstraylee]

Another issue I have with this is trying to figure out why we need to force feed this extremely rapid and costly development for AI right now?

Anything that's new the general public fear. AI is still in its infancy. As technology progresses so will the need for data storage and energy consumption. My personal opinion is the willingness to embrace the new tech. It's not going away.

Already call centers are getting better and better by using AI. The ability to answer complicated questions quickly is nothing short of amazing. Robotics replacing humans in transportation is a big win. I'm all for replacing humans in a lot of performance based tasks. No calling in sick, no attitudes.

Waymo freight trucks here in CA are nothing short of amazing!! Just another example of getting rid of the steering wheel holders that are warts of the transportation industry.

This is going to force people to think outside the box for jobs where humans cannot be replaced.

 

[KrisZ]

Anything that's new the general public fear. AI is still in its infancy. As technology progresses so will the need for data storage and energy consumption. My personal opinion is the willingness to embrace the new tech. It's not going away.

Already call centers are getting better and better by using AI. The ability to answer complicated questions quickly is nothing short of amazing. Robotics replacing humans in transportation is a big win. I'm all for replacing humans in a lot of performance based tasks. No calling in sick, no attitudes.

Waymo freight trucks here in CA are nothing short of amazing!! Just another example of getting rid of the steering wheel holders that are warts of the transportation industry.

This is going to force people to think outside the box for jobs where humans cannot be replaced.

What gets me is not the AI or fear of it, although I do think it will be used heavily for surveillance. But the sudden shift in priorities. EVs have been hailed as the savior of our planet, yet nothing was done to make the electric energy more reliable or affordable. In fact many places, like CA did the opposite.
Yet, all of the sudden we discover all these data centers need a lot of power and, just like that, we're talking about building nukes and provide more power.

You don't need to be a genius to suspect something doesn't add up here and that corporate interests obviously take precedence over public interests. I think that's why a lot of people and communities are against these projects. Lot's of them probably already struggled with water and electricity and had their local governments do nothing. Now they see the sudden shift and can add two and two together.

I don't think it's the fear of AI that creates the resistance, it's the fear of being played and exploited, which is very likely true for many small communities where such projects are being proposed.

 

[Arc]

And that bad neighbor some folks have ?
He will finally croak when these get liquidated - and one gets dropped off between houses

View attachment 338290

I want that under the hood of my truck

 

[SShooterZ]

You don't need to be a genius to suspect something doesn't add up here and that corporate interests obviously take precedence over public interests. I think that's why a lot of people and communities are against these projects. Lot's of them probably already struggled with water and electricity and had their local governments do nothing. Now they see the sudden shift and can add two and two together.

I don't think it's the fear of AI that creates the resistance, it's the fear of being played and exploited, which is very likely true for many small communities where such projects are being proposed.

Nailed it. The DCs in and of themselves aren't the issue, it's the shift of tax dollars and donations that are raising a lot of concern. Citizens are paying the price for others to line their pockets.

 

[danstraylee]

You don't need to be a genius to suspect something doesn't add up here and that corporate interests obviously take precedence over public interests. I think that's why a lot of people and communities are against these projects. Lot's of them probably already struggled with water and electricity and had their local governments do nothing. Now they see the sudden shift and can add two and two together.

For some, it sucks for sure but it has been like this since the beginning of time. Short term corporate long term public. I'm not against corporate profit over the general publics. It never has nor ever will effect my life in a negative way. I just roll with the punches and live my life as I see fit.

It will all work itself out.....

 

[burbguy82]

I am against them, mostly because I do not see their value.

What necessity is their for these systems to be built? How can it faithfully improve everyday life? Does it solve a physical issue that humanity has yet to resolve?

 

[rijndael]

I am against them, mostly because I do not see their value.

What necessity is their for these systems to be built? How can it faithfully improve everyday life? Does it solve a physical issue that humanity has yet to resolve?

Practically every website you visit is hosted in a data center.
Do you use an app to order fast food?
Buy airline tickets online?
Order from Amazon?
Share medical information from one doctor to another doctor?
Use Waze, Google Maps, or Apple maps ... and get real time traffic updates?

It's all hosted in a data centers.

 

[dogememe]

I am against them, mostly because I do not see their value.

What necessity is their for these systems to be built? How can it faithfully improve everyday life? Does it solve a physical issue that humanity has yet to resolve?

I mean come winter we won’t need to use the heater! Not that we use the heater more than 2x a year in the Bay Area anyway, but one of these puppies in every room we’re good! I’d say that’s solving a physical issue. The other 350 days a year? Not sure yet, but the local AI models are getting really good and performant even on “cheap” hardware. I’m thinking of making a few YT videos on what’s possible without a single token from cloud-based frontier labs. Although maybe a waste of time since there are already videos on that.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Practically every website you visit is hosted in a data center.
Do you use an app to order fast food?
Buy airline tickets online?
Order from Amazon?
Share medical information from one doctor to another doctor?
Use Waze, Google Maps, or Apple maps ... and get real time traffic updates?

It's all hosted in a data centers.

While the title of this thread should maybe say "AI datacenters" specifically, you of all people know that AI datacenters are vastly different than cloud hosting data centers.

If these recently announced quantum switching chips actually come to fruition we will possibly need 1000X less AI datacenter space. It will be like back when that giant tower on your desk was replaced with a 14 inch laptop. What will we do with all the space?

 

[burbguy82]

I mean come winter we won’t need to use the heater! Not that we use the heater more than 2x a year in the Bay Area anyway, but one of these puppies in every room we’re good! I’d say that’s solving a physical issue. The other 350 days a year? Not sure yet, but the local AI models are getting really good and performant even on “cheap” hardware. I’m thinking of making a few YT videos on what’s possible without a single token from cloud-based frontier labs. Although maybe a waste of time since there are already videos on that.

View attachment 339122

View attachment 339123

Ok, so beyond comedy, and making fake youtube videos, is there any tangible (other than the inefficient heat loss and use for space heating)?

 

[dogememe]

Ok, so beyond comedy, and making fake youtube videos, is there any tangible (other than the inefficient heat loss and use for space heating)?

Yes, GHCP is going from fixed price subscription of $40/mo for an insane amount of usage even with top tier frontier models to charging for your actual usage. My estimated usage is $500+/mo and will continue to rise.

Sure the self hosted open models on reasonably affordable hardware is not going to compete with Claude Opus but for most tasks you don’t need that amount of smarts. For both my servers was about $2500.

The local models can whip up a typical business website or debug error logs or come up with a proper plan based on a lazy description that I can then use in a better model. For large or complex tasks I’m keeping the $10 GHCP plan. Also cancelled SuperGrok so another $30 savings there. The free tiers of Grok, Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT plus the $10/mo GHCP plan plus my two local AI servers will just about cover my usage. And it will pay for itself in just a few months when compared to the new GHCP pricing.

 

[rijndael]

While the title of this thread should maybe say "AI datacenters" specifically, you of all people know that AI datacenters are vastly different than cloud hosting data centers.

The vast majority of my data center complaints are with the regular ones, not hyper-scaled, simply because I've been dealing with their encroachment for the past 5 years. The AI ones are a recent problem.

As a matter of fact, the two evidence pieces I linked to already, with the pictures of them backing to houses and sound video from the sidewalk, are against regular ones.

 

[Owen Lucas]

We've had data centers around us for many years without issue.

The new data centers are energy and water hogs that also produce noise pollution. Some even have their own power plants.

If a mega-data center moved in, didn't noise pollute, lower the water table, or increase energy/water costs for the community. It wouldn't bother me.

I am against them, mostly because I do not see their value.

These companies know something many of us don't and they are putting billions on the line, and will continue to do so when the chips need upgrades.

A server rack with 8 Nvidia H200's costs $400k and has the same compute as an entire traditional server ROOM 5 years ago. In fact it would supposedly cost $400k just to build and wire out the room, and now you can get it all in an array of 8 chips.

These data centers aren't for your typical web-hosting or storage. They are essentially for processing massive datasets to improve current services or invent new ones completely. Supporting all AI usage is important but I think developing new services will be primary.

This WILL replace many jobs but will also supplement and supercharge many fields such as medicine, research, and whatever tools companies use.

There WILL be massive turbulence in society. There will be haves and have nots and likely a larger welfare class. Once robots take manual work over, good luck. UBI Universal Basic Income will be commonplace, people will feel useless. Social impact of this will be, unknown but likely not good. We can't be all on welfare, having meaning in life, some of which comes from ones career, and optimism is important in a successful society and for birth rates too.

My conspiracy angle is that some of this compute ( for non-gov't facilities) will be provided for military purposes as well. The AI race is just as important for cyber warfare, developing new weapons, decrypting enemy communications, reverse engineering tech, making political decisions, finding trends and patterns not previously humanly possible. Some high level stuff only our best and brightest know about.

I think it's on par with the Manhattan project, both militarily and privately. Having private industry be a good community steward is the issue, otherwise no one would really care.

 

[rijndael]

The new data centers are energy and water hogs

One of the ones I've walked through recently had a 1.5 MW rack .... a single rack rated for 1.5 Mega Watts!! It's like 40" x 40" in footprint.

 

[Owen Lucas]

One of the ones I've walked through recently had a 1.5 MW rack .... a single rack rated for 1.5 Mega Watts!! It's like 40" x 20" in footprint.

Wow, H200s? How many in a rack?

I drove by what appears to be a new datacenter in Kentucky, at first I thought it was an Amazon warehouse, then I thought maybe an automobile manufacturing plant, and then I saw what appeared to be 8 power plants next to it, in addition to a HV power line connection. Filling that massive building with 1.5MW racks, no wonder they need all that energy!

If you don't mind me asking, what do you do with AI data centers? I'd like to be involved one day but my qualifications in computer science would likely qualify me as a janitor.

 

[rijndael]

Wow, H200s? How many in a rack?

I don't remember. But you can get a video walkthrough here:

 

[SC Maintenance]

The vast majority of my data center complaints are with the regular ones, not hyper-scaled, simply because I've been dealing with their encroachment for the past 5 years. The AI ones are a recent problem.

As a matter of fact, the two evidence pieces I linked to already, with the pictures of them backing to houses and sound video from the sidewalk, are against regular ones.

The encroachment is a very local issue. I could care less if they build one in your backyard?

People don’t want to subsidize there water and electricity.

 

[rijndael]

Water and electricity rates rising is a problem with both kinds of data centers. We have something like 400 in my area.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Water and electricity rates rising is a problem with both kinds of data centers. We have something like 400 in my area.

AI centric datacenters use exponentially more electricity due to the concentration of GPU's set up for massive continuose compute power completely unlike traditional cloud hosting and other data centers. As such they also use exponentially more cooling water.

The exponential rise of water and electricity costs correlates directly with the rise of AI datacenters.

Your simply trying to gaslight everyone.

 

[rijndael]

Your simply trying to gaslight everyone.

LOL.

Have at it, I'm out.