#data-centers

#data-centers

At first, the renderings looked like progress for the majority-Black town: glass-and-concrete buildings promising jobs, innovation, and a future rooted in Big Tech. But the fine print told a different story: a complex that would level 700 acres of forest, swallow nearly 2 million gallons of water a day, and draw enough electricity to power a city the size of Seattle. What officials pitched as transformation began to feel, to Simelton, like extraction.

And the features - wow! What a treat to have Tony Davis' perspective in such a balanced piece (" Dried out in Phoenix "), giving us not only up-to-the minute news but sorely needed context - history, politics, the law - along with a view from the desert floor. He painted a picture (with the help of wonderful photographs) of those isolated suburban areas I won't soon forget.

In July of this year, I flew 11,000 kilometers from Buenos Aires to take a course on artificial intelligence policy and law at the University of Leuven in Belgium, a vast neo-Gothic structure founded in 1425 where today, across its various campuses, 57,000 students study a wide variety of disciplines. Halfway through the class, the lecturer divided us into groups and gave us the assignment for a group exam: The environmental footprint is overrated.

Aerospace engineer KR Sridhar always dreamed big: He used to work with NASA on technology to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen to support life on other planets or let humans breathe air on Mars. But as the Soviet Union fell and the space race slowed, Sridhar pivoted to providing clean energy technology for the rising global middle class. He cofounded Ion America in 2001-renamed Bloom Energy five years later-with a focus on fuel cells that deliver cleaner, on-site, off-grid power.

A company's opaque plan to build a massive data center outside Tucson, Arizona has roiled the desert city over the past few months, the latest US community to push back as tech companies aggressively seek to build out infrastructure for cloud computing and to power the AI boom. The proposed data center, known as Project Blue, would span 290 acres in Pima county, and become the biggest development ever in the county, or anywhere in the southern part of the state.

On Page 1 of the Mercury News was an article about La Nina, stating that we do not know if it will have very little effect on our water supply or if it will cause a drought. On Page 6 was an opinion column about the number of data centers in the area and the water that they use (AI data centers must disclose how much water they require).

In Silicon Valley, more than 55 data centers operate in the city of Santa Clara alone, and more have already been approved, according to the city. As generative AI floods into multiple aspects of our lives (work, health care, education, entertainment, access to information, companionship, national security, etc.), the need for powerful data centers grows. Some are cooled with air; some use recycled water; many, however, require drinking-quality water for cooling.

If I were a betting man, I would feel safe putting money on you being woken up by a smartphone alarm this morning. Maybe you looked at your texts, perused your news apps or (if you're like me) played Quartiles while you made your coffee and checked work emails. I'm also willing to bet that at some point in the last week you got in your car or took a hike and used GPS,

The number represents the state's single largest spike in planned data centers in any one year, and a 16% increase from Virginia's 2024 total. Amazon-built data centers represent the bulk of the new construction, with 28 planned facilities, according to Business Insider's count. The tech giant had 177 data centers built or in construction nationwide by the end of 2024, according to the analysis. The new planned data centers in Virginia would grow Amazon's fleet to 205, a 15% increase.

Microsoft is buying 100 megawatts of solar capacity from Japanese developer Shizen Energy, the latest in a string of renewable energy deals designed to power the tech company's growing compute needs. The agreement, which the companies announced late last week, covers four different solar developments; one is already operating and three are under construction. The deal covers output from the plants for 20 years. Seattle-based Microsoft already operates two data centers in Japan. Microsoft's compute capacity is slated to expand as the company invests $2.9 billion in the country over the next year.

Last week, while touring one of OpenAI's mammoth data centers being built in Abilene, Texas, Altman had a pretty casual outlook when he was asked about a bubble that could financially decimate the entire industry. "Between the ten years we've already been operating and the many decades ahead of us, there will be booms and busts," Altman ruminated, as quoted by The Associated Press. "People will overinvest and lose money, and underinvest and lose a lot of revenue."

My concern is that not all of the energy that they're using for data centers is renewable, which will undercut the city's own climate commitments,