Wanna build a data centre in Saskatchewan? Be Canadian, and bring your own power.
While the backlash has been growing, anyone who uses their cellphone for Google, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail or nearly any other major app is, in fact, using a data centre. The online protests about data centre quite literally use data centres to make their posts. If you use a smartphone, you are using data centres.
FOAD with that argument. The data storage and switching centres that the internet runs on are not these. The data centres/future laser tag arenas/dystopian hellscapes being discussed are massive facilities for LLM GPU’s that you can’t actually even find out the total water consumption for, use more power than Saskatoon or Regina, probably combined, and will break whoever is left holding the bag when the music stops.
I can’t wait for the bubble to pop. Sorry about your stock market investments.
“The online protests about data centre quite literally use data centres to make their posts.”
Yes they do, and the MONEY to make all those tiresome posts comes from China. Because China wants to WIN the AI war against the USA, and the only way to do that is to make the American slow down on their own. By propaganda.
Propaganda like this: “…that you can’t actually even find out the total water consumption for…”
Peace be upon dear Wonko, but A) they recycle the water and only replace what’s lost to evaporation, which isn’t much. And B) the water, when returned to the river/creek/lake/or sewage system, is cleaner than when it went into the data center. Because they have to FILTER it before they can use it, and they have to FILTER it some more every time it goes through the cooling system. Otherwise everything clogs up with gunk.
So yeah. Data centers do not “consume” water the way a housing subdivision does. They have water -in- them, for sure, but they don’t spoil the water and then dump it.
Besides which, this is Canada and we have more water here than nearly anyplace else on Earth. It falls from the fricking sky, dude. We can spare some for a data center.
I am not a big AI/LLM booster, because I have some doubts about how awesome it’s going to be even after they throw all this compute power at it. BUT, I do not know everything, and a large number of very smart people are spending actual trillions to get this done. Also, anything that China wants is bad for me, so we should bear all that in mind when talking about this stuff.
Resist the stupid “but it’s for the chillllldren!!!” arguments. Paid Chinese propaganda, straight up.
No. There is no money from CHHIIINAA on this one. This is literally mostly rural landowners against mega corps on this. Anything else is pire AI propoganda. AI data centres are a scourge. Regular storage centres are all over the place and you’ve never noticed them. A facility with 680 2.4mW diesel gensets is not one of those.
Gave up on the water angle, eh? Now it’s the sacred LANNNNNND!
“This is literally mostly rural landowners against mega corps…”
You mean like in Hamilton, where they want to build one next to the bay on empty industrial land? It’s going to displace so many farmers growing lettuce!!!
200 to 500 acres on flat ground near water and a gas line. Doesn’t have to be good farm land. What matters is the river, and the fuel for power generation.
A chicken farm is 1000 acres. Just for reference, eh? One data center, you sacrifice a chicken farm. Oh noes.
I also love how you’re trying to pretend there’s a difference between an eeeeevile AI data center and a regular telco/corporate/government cloud box. No, there’s no difference. Same servers, same network switches, same water-cooling setup, same energy demand per rack.
When somebody has no argument but they won’t shut up, I generally assume they’re a professional internetist. It isn’t -always- Chinese money, but often enough.
DANG …. I thought BYOP was short for bring your own penis!
For a moment there I thought Brian was letting his freak flag fly 😉
I thought it was “buy your own potash.”
I’ve seen this movie before … re: data center hysteria.
When, where? In Silicon Valley. When Silicon Valley was getting rolling, manufacturing transistors and all manner of mixture chips, circuits and whatnot … they were making all this stuff in San Jose south to Gilroy.
but
Then, the State eco-guardians discovered all the nasty chemicals used were showing up in the groundwater and soil. The State essentially BANNED the manufacture of computers and chips in CA. So it all moved to communist Chyyyynahhh where no such environmental protections exist.
Enjoy your data centers all moving to Communist Chyyynahhh. But you won’t have any of the EMF death to worry about … or something
Um, dude, uou can literally look to existing AI hyperscalers in Virginia or Texas or Memphis Oregeon (how the hell do you desertify the Columbia river basin anyway?) and see the hell inflicted on anyone around them. And for what? So people can have fake chats with a fake machine? So people can make funny pictures by stealing everyone elses and smashing them together? Or so they can make deepfake kiddie porn? These things are massively unprofitable despite being forced on everyone.
Um dude, why you lie like this bro? You think we don’t know what’s up? We can’t google stuff?
Who you working for, bro?
pfffft. using the data centre . . . . . . to protest the data centre? kinda like these chaps:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_QrhWABUJ3k/maxresdefault.jpg
protesting the substance that the craft they are in is made of?
Lord knows, water has been in short supply in Saskatchewan this summer.
Canada’s most essential business partner taking action…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/massive-chinese-bot-farm-caught-conducting-us-influence-operations-pushing-coordinated-online-narrative?msockid=3fbb0adc94b361480b611e6e95bb60e6
Yes, as I was saying, the useful idiots are all singing out of the same Chinese songbook.
I wonder if they get paid by the hour, or by the comment?
…Large hyperscale facilities (think of the huge cloud data centers) can use 1 to 5 million gallons of water per day under peak conditions. At the upper end (5 million gal/day), that is as much water in a day as a town of 30,000–50,000 people would use. That startling stat often grabs headlines. However, it’s worth noting this would be a very large data center on a hot day; typical usage might be lower most of the year…
https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275&item_id=130961
In summary, large hyperscale facilities use as much water as 30,000 to 50,000 illegal aliens would use. Please note, data centers use “recycled” water. That recycled water is treated waste water.
“…can use 1 to 5 million gallons of water per day…”
But they never seem to say what they mean by the word “use”.
Yes, they do -pump- millions of gallons of water through their cooling systems in a day. But it’s the same fricking water. They run it through a hundred times in a day. Because the system doesn’t hold millions of gallons. It holds thousands of gallons, and re-uses the same water over and over and over etc.
A really BIG hyperscaler data center will have 50,000 to 100,000 gallons in their entire cooling system. They don’t add water, they don’t dispose of water. They just pump the same water, day after day.
Like your car. Your car, when it’s running, “uses” hundreds of gallons of coolant per hour. Like 500 gallons on a hot day. Do you buy five hundred gallons of Prestone antifreeze? No. You buy ONE gallon and it sits in your garage for three years before you use it up. Because it’s a closed loop cooling system. You replace leaks and evaporation.
I do admit that you need to be pretty persistent to uncover that information right now. Almost as if a whole bunch of people didn’t want you to know what a closed loop cooling system is. People who lie for a living.