Big Data, Weak Holiday

Spectator

In a post to his own Truth Social, our president said if you oppose them it will leave your community “backwards and poor.” Then, in his Time Magazine interview, he doubled down saying opponents would “have no money” and “live in crime-infested squalor.” The cherry atop his negativity sundae was that we will be “controlled by China.”

Oh, dear. He is talking about data centers, specifically the gigantic hyperscale data centers now drawing so much attention and increasing opposition.

These centers have multiple purposes, but most attention is given to those being used to support artificial intelligence (AI) activities. In those cases, banks of thousands of computers search for, consume, and store information from literally anywhere they can find it. Newspapers, magazines, internet sites, fiction and non-fiction books—they are trying to consume it all. Elon Musk has said he wants his AI operation to literally know everything.

That’s not just hyperbole; given the time and computing power, these centers could actually acquire every bit of knowledge and information that has ever existed and exists now. It seems preposterous, but we are assured by many sources it is absolutely theoretically possible that a bunch of computers in big warehouse buildings will know everything there is to know.

That, of course, is not the controversy, though it probably should be. The controversy is that some of these data centers are enormous and use ludicrous amounts of electricity to operate all those computers and millions of gallons of water to cool them down.

The United States need not worry about falling behind China in the AI race, as we already have more than 4,000 of these data centers—up to 5,000 if we count some smaller centers on college campuses. We have 80 here in Michigan.

China and its allies continue to manufacture much of what makes up the guts of these data centers, but they are significantly behind with no more than 600 currently in existence or under construction. This does not completely eliminate a competitive threat from China, as they have proven in the past they can undertake major construction projects very quickly given their huge human resources and willingness to bend their own environmental regulations.

Virginia is our ground zero for data centers, as they already have nearly as many as China. Loudoun County alone, in the northern part of the state, already has 233 data centers existing or under construction, occupying a staggering 56.5 million square feet according to the county’s own website. There have been advantages, much as our president claimed, as Loudoun County property owners have seen their property tax rates plummet because these enormous centers are paying plenty despite the tax breaks they’ve been given.

But the county residents have now had about enough of the power drains, water consumption, and remarkable noise these centers can generate. The hyperscale centers—the large facilities used primarily for AI—can use up to 100 megawatts of power constantly. That’s enough to power somewhere between 16,000 and 100,000 private homes, depending on their size. They also use up to 5,000,000 gallons of water every day. They claim that water usage is on a closed loop, but the reality is as much as 60 percent of that water evaporates due to the heat and must be replaced every day.

In addition to the promise of lower property taxes and greater revenues for the communities in which these monoliths locate, the other promise is jobs. The potential of hundreds if not thousands of jobs is attractive. It is true enough there are many jobs during construction, as many as 1,500 jobs in an economy that needs them. However, once these centers are constructed, those jobs vanish and, according to employment agency Broadstaff, only about 50 full-time technicians are required once the facility is operational.

AI is already nearly omnipresent. It is in our phones, computers, televisions, vehicles, even kitchen appliances. It has remarkable potential for engineering and medical applications and will unalterably change our future. But the tech billionaires are going to need to figure out less intrusive and destructive ways to generate power and cool their hyperscale centers.

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Monday, October 12, is likely the most absurd federal holiday in existence.

We honor Christopher Columbus and continue a myth some of us were taught in elementary school, that Columbus “discovered” America. He did not. In fact, he never set foot in what is now the United States, despite four trips to the western hemisphere. He thought he had landed in the “Indies” as the islands of southeast Asia were then called. He landed on islands already occupied, massacred and enslaved the native Taino people, and was the first European to export those slaves.

In short, Columbus was an intrepid mariner but a terrible person unworthy of recognition or celebration. He “discovered” nothing, much like AI, and desecrated nearly everything he encountered.

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