CHANDLER, Arizona — This Arizona suburb sent a searing warning message to Big Tech companies after city officials on Thursday night unanimously rejected a proposed artificial intelligence data center — capping a fight that attracted powerful interests from Silicon Valley and Washington.
A lobbying push that included Microsoft and Meta and outside political pressure to approve the project, perhaps most significantly from former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, shined a spotlight on AI industry efforts to influence local decisions around development.
What better place than the desert for a water-hungry installation like a data center?
Seriously. If they have to build these giant wastes of energy, why not put them up in places like Minnesota, where for half the year you can cool the place by just opening a window.
We don’t want em here. Keep Minnesota free of these losers
Deserts are cold at night. Temp swings of +/- 30° daily. That being said the water thing is a pretty big issue and I deeply regret having to vote for Sinema.
In the US, the western deserts are the best places. No radical weather, very predictable climate, zero tectonic activity, no natural disasters.
Force them to do closed-loop cooling, force them to bring some solar to the party, zero additional costs to other businesses and homes.
This is down to state and local people and politicians to handle. And it sounds like people are finally clueing in. And if they don’t, there are other ways to deal with such structures.
What pisses me off the most, there is no excuse for local politicians to approve these monstrosities. Usually, they’re wanting to bring tax revenues and jobs. These DCs bring neither.
The
spicedata must flow.They are not water hungry, this is nonsense that spreads way too much. You can cool with air just fine, circulating the water in a closed loop. There are actual issues we need to talk about.
“You can cool with air just fine, circulating the water in a closed loop.”
Sure,but are they? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just take in water and send it right back out?
The new OpenAI data center(s) for the “Stargate” project will use closed-loop liquid cooling.
A lot of the time they are using open loop evaporative cooling, which works particularly efficiently in hot, dry, desert air.
Problem being, they’re not doing that because of the extra expanse. What you’re saying should be state mandated, hell, federally mandated.