A dark money war on datacenters funded by the same billionaire and foreign interests who tried and failed to kill hydraulic fracturing 20 years ago is rapidly forming into shape.
Some of the opposition may be astroturf, but citizens have excellent reasons to oppose data centers, not least of which is a well earned hatred of Big Tech. Robert Bryce is covering the actual Grass Roots side of the opposition.
Big Tech has spent 30 years exporting our jobs to other nations and when that was inconvenient, rigging the legal system in the USA to import millions of foreigners to replace US workers and keep wages depressed.
These are the organizations that will sculpt how AI behaves and the data that it outputs. Why should we trust them one iota?
The starting wage for an excellent graduate in EE is the same today as it was in 2000. About a 50% decrease in real terms. What kind of shortage causes a decrease in price? Yet, Big Tech has lied and lied and lied claiming non existent shortages in STEM workers for the last 30 years.
These are the people we should trust with the mechanisms that will inexorably shape and dominate our futures?
The Big Tech efforts to suppress wages of US STEM workers is alarming. H1-B is a prime example. It was supposed to be used to bring the "best and brightest" to the US, but it is being used as a source of cheap labor to suppress engineering wages and increase the wealth of the globalists at the top who are already incredibly wealthy.
It was never used for the purpose with which they justified it.
There was never a shortage of STEM workers in the USA and our educations system was always capable of filling any shortage quickly, if there was motivation (wages) to do so.
This has been a problem for 30 years. Visa workers started eating the US STEM work force from the oldest down. In the early years no one cared because they were okay with what looked like a bit of age discrimination.
Then we reached the point where being over 40 made STEM unemployable.
Now new grads can't find jobs. Yet Big Tech is still screaming that there is a shortage.
A year or so ago there was an announcement that the Trump administration was going to require a $100K fee from employers for each H1-B worker. Not sure if that is sufficient, but it would be a step in the right direction. Did it happen?
Yes, I think he has too much of Ramaswamy and Musk whispering in his ear on this topic. They both stated sometime near (after?) the election that they hate American workers and would only ever hire foreigners given the chance.
Paraphrasing, of course.
How Ohio is willing to make Ramaswamy Governor is a mystery to me. Whoever did Oppo in the primary should have dug out that quote and blared it to the voters.
My issue with them is that they want to do the same thing as utility solar for many of rhe same reasons.
They want large swaths of land that is relatively cleared, near a large power line that doesnt cost them much... that equals rural farmland.
Many farmers have trouble refusing the offers. The price (in rural areas), to the developers is cheap compared to what it would cost in an urban area.
Most of us who live in rural areas, do so because we agree to the inconvenience in order to have peace and quiet. IF we wanted urban sprawl and industrial construction, we'd stay in urban areas.
The water issue in my county WOULD be an issue. We are part utility water but mostly wells. We have a reservoir and already have water issues. The one approved DC in our county would use around 450k gallons PER DAY. That is more than the entire county uses NOW. That's a problem. I've heard most DCs are reluctant to use closed loop type systems because of the cost.
My personal issue (other than water and land use) is that I think technology is moving so fast that we will be stuck with these HUGE "white elephants" in 5-10 years. I remember Cray computers... now we carry them (and more) around in our hand or on our wrists. I see the massive buildings as a Cray... in the near future could that building fit on a desktop? If so what do we do with those useless/outdated monstrosities? The farms are gone.
Do we REALLY need one on every "street corner"? Rather than charging ahead with no plan other than developers making lots of money (ie utility solar developers) with little else considered, how about a long term plan with a spread of the development in areas of planned expansion or industry, NOT rural farmland and forests. Maybe a plan that looks at future needs.
I fear a DC construction bubble. There is a smaller building that I pass often... it was completed late last summer and is STILL EMPTY. This was built by a "developer" hoping to cash in on the craze. I'll be interested to see what happens to that building. Id like to see the many abandoned factories or office building in the country be used/considered FIRST before building new.
Anyway, this is my rant... sorry to be so long but I dont want to see my county full of big ugly building rather than fields of cows, horses and food. 😢
Nothing to apologize for, and I share many of the concerns you point out here. As both I and Steve said: there are many very legitimate concerns the datacenter/AI industry is obligated to address. The hard part is going to be separating the legitimate concerns from the same kind of rank propaganda and faked-up studies from the very same bad actors which have plagued fracking for 20 years.
Elon bought an old abandoned Elecrrolux factory near Memphis for "Colossus". He bought an abandoned power source just across the TN/MS border to power it. I like thoise ideas.
A bond for the local jurisdiction (paid for by the DC developer) that covers any remodeling or demolition of any abandoned buildings.
Make sure they are sited in long planned industrial areas so, no surprises. Stay away from farmland and taking down forests.
BE OPEN AND TRANSPARENT from the beginning. People like me might be far more willing to work with them if they were.
As to the comparison of fracking and DCs... you can't frack just ANYWHERE... it would seem they feel you can plop a DC on any piece of ground.
Look up Mt.Pony in Culpeper VA for a way to build something that few objected to because most didn't even know it was there. Today it's more well known because of the Library of Congress uses it. I only knew about it because my first job was at Western Electric and there was telephone equipment in the building, which WE designed, installed and maintained. I didn't know then how strategically important it was.
I just want the AI people to slow down a little. Look down the road and think "worst case" when planning. Many times the new shiny object gets lots of attention, until it quickly gets replaced by another, newer object. Sigh
I think the problem with slowing down is that China is speeding up. In the end, the world is going to be dominated by some form of AI platform. It will either be one made in the United States, or one made by China. I'm afraid slowing down is not a viable option. Not saying any of this is ideal - just trying to be real about it all.
If we need datacenters then there is a commercial benefit to the owner of the data processing being computed. That company will fund the effort. There is no need for subsidies, or grants, or any public money. The data centers in some cases are being proposed by developers who will promote the construction and then try to promote a company to pay rent for occupancy. These installations can generate their own electricity, use closed loop cooling systems, and buy the real estate. When all costs are borne by the promoter, there are fewer data centers being proposed. These are a fad just like wind and solar to suck up free money. And what about the legitimate data centers? We already have them, and some huge to even massive installations. So do we need additional capacity? Well the promoters do else they haven’t scam - …. Errr I mean business. A great example of the promoter operations is Fermi - yep backed (code word for over hyped by) Rick Perry. Look at how successful they were in signing up occupants for the computing center. Now as to the land use - you can’t support wind and solar and not data centers - that’s true hypocrisy.
This "you" DOES NOT support utility solar and wind! While I'm not thrilled with DCs, its more the quantity that bothers me. I just don't understand the necessity for so many. I have questioned that China (who only knows how to copy and seldom seems able to have an original thought or design for ANYTHING. See their "new" C909 aircraft (a copy of the MD-80), that took 20 years finish manufacturing. The only sales have been to Chinese airlines, who have no choice.
I understand that AI/DCs are progress but at what cost, if overbuilt or made obsolete by "new and improved" technology? I've been reading about something that would eliminate the need for them in just a short while.
"Big Tech's" strategy should be to sort the wheat from the chaff. Genuine concerns of landowners vs scam issues from billionaire backed NGO's such as the Sierra Club who lobby corrupt pols at every level to instigate "grass roots" opposition" to Data Centers. An opposition with Bernie, the Commie, wild eyed, pointing with his crooked fingers, and spitting, as the leader, is not be trusted, any more than Kim Jong Un of North Korea promising to treat the west kindly.
Big Tech should consult with Robert and use AI to sort this out?
One of the things that I thought after years in the oil and gas industry, that I would never see happen is large oil and gas companies moving their computing to outside datacenters. Big oil companies were among the first to adopt supercomputers. Big Oil always used to maintain its own private servers. But contracting out computing and data management has happened. For years security concerns and competitive advantages of keeping data in-house seemed to always be the most important thing. I remember seeing people fired for sharing seismic data, even pictures of seismic data were tightly held and not shared even with regulators. Presentations had to be vetted by legal. Yet today many operators staff don't even have computers on their own desk, instead they log into a remote system run by Big Tech, and managed sometimes by third-party IT workers. Datacenters do need to be careful of their community and environmental impact, but today those datacenters are what is running our industry and everyone else's private computing. According to Grok, AI accounts for only 14% of the use of data centers. The people objecting to datacenters paint AI as the bogeyman, but the reality is their own Microsoft Office apps, their email. Teams, their Apple iPhones, and most of their computing is running in those datacenters. The entire back end of Substack, where you are reading this is in one of those datacenters. I still do my taxes on my own computer with the network turned off, but probably most peoples' tax returns are sitting in a datacenter today. In some ways this is analogous to oil and gas, as so many people that depend entirely on oil and gas, think we need to stop using it. Those same people protesting datacenters are the ones creating the need for them in the first place.
Some of the opposition may be astroturf, but citizens have excellent reasons to oppose data centers, not least of which is a well earned hatred of Big Tech. Robert Bryce is covering the actual Grass Roots side of the opposition.
Big Tech has spent 30 years exporting our jobs to other nations and when that was inconvenient, rigging the legal system in the USA to import millions of foreigners to replace US workers and keep wages depressed.
These are the organizations that will sculpt how AI behaves and the data that it outputs. Why should we trust them one iota?
The starting wage for an excellent graduate in EE is the same today as it was in 2000. About a 50% decrease in real terms. What kind of shortage causes a decrease in price? Yet, Big Tech has lied and lied and lied claiming non existent shortages in STEM workers for the last 30 years.
These are the people we should trust with the mechanisms that will inexorably shape and dominate our futures?
The Big Tech efforts to suppress wages of US STEM workers is alarming. H1-B is a prime example. It was supposed to be used to bring the "best and brightest" to the US, but it is being used as a source of cheap labor to suppress engineering wages and increase the wealth of the globalists at the top who are already incredibly wealthy.
It was never used for the purpose with which they justified it.
There was never a shortage of STEM workers in the USA and our educations system was always capable of filling any shortage quickly, if there was motivation (wages) to do so.
This has been a problem for 30 years. Visa workers started eating the US STEM work force from the oldest down. In the early years no one cared because they were okay with what looked like a bit of age discrimination.
Then we reached the point where being over 40 made STEM unemployable.
Now new grads can't find jobs. Yet Big Tech is still screaming that there is a shortage.
A year or so ago there was an announcement that the Trump administration was going to require a $100K fee from employers for each H1-B worker. Not sure if that is sufficient, but it would be a step in the right direction. Did it happen?
About ten minutes later corporations found a dozen ways around the fee using waivers and other visa types.
All the visa types need to be ended and the holders sent home.
Sorry to hear that. Trump has been a bit flaky on this. Someone needs to get his attention and convince him to eliminate this scam.
Yes, I think he has too much of Ramaswamy and Musk whispering in his ear on this topic. They both stated sometime near (after?) the election that they hate American workers and would only ever hire foreigners given the chance.
Paraphrasing, of course.
How Ohio is willing to make Ramaswamy Governor is a mystery to me. Whoever did Oppo in the primary should have dug out that quote and blared it to the voters.
My issue with them is that they want to do the same thing as utility solar for many of rhe same reasons.
They want large swaths of land that is relatively cleared, near a large power line that doesnt cost them much... that equals rural farmland.
Many farmers have trouble refusing the offers. The price (in rural areas), to the developers is cheap compared to what it would cost in an urban area.
Most of us who live in rural areas, do so because we agree to the inconvenience in order to have peace and quiet. IF we wanted urban sprawl and industrial construction, we'd stay in urban areas.
The water issue in my county WOULD be an issue. We are part utility water but mostly wells. We have a reservoir and already have water issues. The one approved DC in our county would use around 450k gallons PER DAY. That is more than the entire county uses NOW. That's a problem. I've heard most DCs are reluctant to use closed loop type systems because of the cost.
My personal issue (other than water and land use) is that I think technology is moving so fast that we will be stuck with these HUGE "white elephants" in 5-10 years. I remember Cray computers... now we carry them (and more) around in our hand or on our wrists. I see the massive buildings as a Cray... in the near future could that building fit on a desktop? If so what do we do with those useless/outdated monstrosities? The farms are gone.
Do we REALLY need one on every "street corner"? Rather than charging ahead with no plan other than developers making lots of money (ie utility solar developers) with little else considered, how about a long term plan with a spread of the development in areas of planned expansion or industry, NOT rural farmland and forests. Maybe a plan that looks at future needs.
I fear a DC construction bubble. There is a smaller building that I pass often... it was completed late last summer and is STILL EMPTY. This was built by a "developer" hoping to cash in on the craze. I'll be interested to see what happens to that building. Id like to see the many abandoned factories or office building in the country be used/considered FIRST before building new.
Anyway, this is my rant... sorry to be so long but I dont want to see my county full of big ugly building rather than fields of cows, horses and food. 😢
Nothing to apologize for, and I share many of the concerns you point out here. As both I and Steve said: there are many very legitimate concerns the datacenter/AI industry is obligated to address. The hard part is going to be separating the legitimate concerns from the same kind of rank propaganda and faked-up studies from the very same bad actors which have plagued fracking for 20 years.
A couple of ideas:
Elon bought an old abandoned Elecrrolux factory near Memphis for "Colossus". He bought an abandoned power source just across the TN/MS border to power it. I like thoise ideas.
A bond for the local jurisdiction (paid for by the DC developer) that covers any remodeling or demolition of any abandoned buildings.
Make sure they are sited in long planned industrial areas so, no surprises. Stay away from farmland and taking down forests.
BE OPEN AND TRANSPARENT from the beginning. People like me might be far more willing to work with them if they were.
As to the comparison of fracking and DCs... you can't frack just ANYWHERE... it would seem they feel you can plop a DC on any piece of ground.
Look up Mt.Pony in Culpeper VA for a way to build something that few objected to because most didn't even know it was there. Today it's more well known because of the Library of Congress uses it. I only knew about it because my first job was at Western Electric and there was telephone equipment in the building, which WE designed, installed and maintained. I didn't know then how strategically important it was.
I just want the AI people to slow down a little. Look down the road and think "worst case" when planning. Many times the new shiny object gets lots of attention, until it quickly gets replaced by another, newer object. Sigh
I think the problem with slowing down is that China is speeding up. In the end, the world is going to be dominated by some form of AI platform. It will either be one made in the United States, or one made by China. I'm afraid slowing down is not a viable option. Not saying any of this is ideal - just trying to be real about it all.
That's why people like me follow you... not only do you educate us but we can have civil discourse and hopefully everyone comes out better for it. ❤️
If we need datacenters then there is a commercial benefit to the owner of the data processing being computed. That company will fund the effort. There is no need for subsidies, or grants, or any public money. The data centers in some cases are being proposed by developers who will promote the construction and then try to promote a company to pay rent for occupancy. These installations can generate their own electricity, use closed loop cooling systems, and buy the real estate. When all costs are borne by the promoter, there are fewer data centers being proposed. These are a fad just like wind and solar to suck up free money. And what about the legitimate data centers? We already have them, and some huge to even massive installations. So do we need additional capacity? Well the promoters do else they haven’t scam - …. Errr I mean business. A great example of the promoter operations is Fermi - yep backed (code word for over hyped by) Rick Perry. Look at how successful they were in signing up occupants for the computing center. Now as to the land use - you can’t support wind and solar and not data centers - that’s true hypocrisy.
This "you" DOES NOT support utility solar and wind! While I'm not thrilled with DCs, its more the quantity that bothers me. I just don't understand the necessity for so many. I have questioned that China (who only knows how to copy and seldom seems able to have an original thought or design for ANYTHING. See their "new" C909 aircraft (a copy of the MD-80), that took 20 years finish manufacturing. The only sales have been to Chinese airlines, who have no choice.
I understand that AI/DCs are progress but at what cost, if overbuilt or made obsolete by "new and improved" technology? I've been reading about something that would eliminate the need for them in just a short while.
Thank you for being part of the very legitimate grass roots opposition to data centers.
"Big Tech's" strategy should be to sort the wheat from the chaff. Genuine concerns of landowners vs scam issues from billionaire backed NGO's such as the Sierra Club who lobby corrupt pols at every level to instigate "grass roots" opposition" to Data Centers. An opposition with Bernie, the Commie, wild eyed, pointing with his crooked fingers, and spitting, as the leader, is not be trusted, any more than Kim Jong Un of North Korea promising to treat the west kindly.
Big Tech should consult with Robert and use AI to sort this out?
One of the things that I thought after years in the oil and gas industry, that I would never see happen is large oil and gas companies moving their computing to outside datacenters. Big oil companies were among the first to adopt supercomputers. Big Oil always used to maintain its own private servers. But contracting out computing and data management has happened. For years security concerns and competitive advantages of keeping data in-house seemed to always be the most important thing. I remember seeing people fired for sharing seismic data, even pictures of seismic data were tightly held and not shared even with regulators. Presentations had to be vetted by legal. Yet today many operators staff don't even have computers on their own desk, instead they log into a remote system run by Big Tech, and managed sometimes by third-party IT workers. Datacenters do need to be careful of their community and environmental impact, but today those datacenters are what is running our industry and everyone else's private computing. According to Grok, AI accounts for only 14% of the use of data centers. The people objecting to datacenters paint AI as the bogeyman, but the reality is their own Microsoft Office apps, their email. Teams, their Apple iPhones, and most of their computing is running in those datacenters. The entire back end of Substack, where you are reading this is in one of those datacenters. I still do my taxes on my own computer with the network turned off, but probably most peoples' tax returns are sitting in a datacenter today. In some ways this is analogous to oil and gas, as so many people that depend entirely on oil and gas, think we need to stop using it. Those same people protesting datacenters are the ones creating the need for them in the first place.