Where Are All the Data Centers?

thundergolfer

I just can’t handle this guy’s “it’s a tulip bubble!” approach when just yesterday Thinking Machines released a demo which would have been taken as literal magic if it was shown 20 years ago. The tech is astonishing and Ed spends 98% of his writing acting like the industry is a scam.

cucumber3732842

People vastly under estimate how hard it is and how much time and money it takes develop anything that doesn't already exist in a dozen places in a given permitting jurisdiction. You want to build another cookie cutter McMansion, pay through the hoops, break dirt at 6mo and be done in a year. You want to build a an X over Y apartment building across the street from the other one, pay through the hoops, break dirt at 2yr, be done in 3yr. You want to build the first X over Y pods and bugs apartment in a given jurisdiction you will be stuck in permitting hell paying through hoop after hoop after hoop, sometimes the same hoop more than once, for 3-5yr right off the bat while the system fights with you. You can't imagine how terrible anything industrial is. The system is basically only set up to be able to easily approve housing and retail and "easy" still takes years. The amount of money it takes to get something popular approved is insane never mind how much something unpopular like a data center would cost. Of course every party is playing fast and loose with terminology and capacity. Investors like "we have <big number> and we're adding even more" capacity much more than "we already had <big number> and we've only added <small number> but god willing we'll have <really huge number> in 5yr if we don't go bankrupt first"

eowln

Ah, it’s the Hysterical Guy Who is Wrong About AI again.

krabat

Look outside of USA. See data centres being constructed in areas with green energy, forcing countries to revert to petro and update power grids to accommodate FUTURE "needs" and governments discounting power bills due to... yeah, due to what, actually? Also watch power bills rising in USA due to faulty leadership, and power lines above-ground constantly at risk during the climbing number of destructive hurricanes. Think bigger and with broader out-reach: All of these companies are forging deals left and right, and - let me guess - some as part of threat-package deals "suggested" by the present US trade administration. Soon, very soon, many of these US/EU-data centres will be forcefully discontinued as part of growing EU-independence. And good riddence, too. Yes, I think AI is an industry in need of a prodcuct, and they are minions of the anti-christ of Capitalism and Consumer-Slaverism. This is already a failed project, as it is done without the ethics of collectivity (to the benefit of "more than me"), to paraphrase Kierkegaard. Me, you and All. Only power and enrichment in this end-time, when care could have leveled the plane and touched us all equally GOOD.