Your language is ambiguous — your horror is in reference to natural gas turbine generators (used at these installations) and not gasoline generators (like in a home context)?
Why the horror? I'd prefer the gas remain in the ground, but given the gassy production of US shale oil, I guess I'd rather it be used for this than just flared. I am frustrated that pollutant emissions aren't being policed, and also that the sudden turbine demand plus supply chain issues mean using aeroderivative turbines that are quite a bit less efficient than more complex combined cycle turbines.
> I guess I'd rather it be used for this than just flared
I doubt this is really reducing the rates of flaring and leaky wells. Its just additional demand.
The biggest problem I've seen is they tend to build these somewhat close to residential areas with generation on-site. Often these power generation centers aren't right next to residential areas due to both air and noise pollution. But governments are often seeming to turn a blind eye.
Yes, the noise pollution is insane. Benn Jordan's YT video "Datacenters Behaving Like Acoustic Weapons" is an insightful, scary 30 min video covering the datacenter infrasound noise, and the nasty things infrasound does to people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo
It's not supposed to be permanent, but it also allows them to not waste time waiting on physical locations to be built. Given how highly competitive this all is, I'm not surprised at all.
The whole thing is like a video game: your construction and power are your limiting factors. We need to CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS and so on. It's interesting that this is such a limiter on the ground that SpaceX is pursuing AI satellites in space. Truly an incredible time to be alive.
Meta's first five buildings took between two and three years to build, but Williams is almost done building out 200 MW (additional) off-grid power plants in a year, and to match that they're putting their equipment in tents. That raises questions for me:
* Did they expect the next five buildings to also take between two and three years to build if done in the same manner? I'd hope it'd be significantly faster the second time because they've perfected the design, found good local contractors and suppliers, etc.
* How much of the time was the actual structure vs. all the stuff inside they still have to do with the tents?
* How long are they expecting to keep this? Are they anticipating extra problems like leaking roofs?
* What are the "off-grid power plants"? Is this basically a whole bunch of diesel or natural gas generators? [edit: oh, yes, "The site is also powered by 200 megawatts of modular gas turbines". I wonder if they're trucking in the fuel too.] If so, yuck.
Microsoft had a neat trick here in the Netherlands: instead of opening a new site they decided to make a their existing site higher by adding a few floors.
Ofcourse that only works once the Dutch borg adapts!
As always, there are some very erudite comments here on HN, which is why I like the site so much. My erudite comment, or rather question, is this: why aren't these people using AI to solve all these problems? Surely it would be a good test of The Product and maybe it would give s[ck]eptics some food for thought?
Microsoft had trialed datacenters in tents nearly 20 years ago. I remember hearing about their trials at some talks back in the day. Crazy to look back on the dates here, felt like it wasn't that long ago.
But a billion active users != number of US citizens that take on the burden of AI. So go build your AI on land where your customers are if they like it so much.
If a large proportion of people are only using AI because they are being threatened with unemployment if they don't, then there's going to be massive resentment building up
You may think that doesn't matter, but it does. History has shown over and over that you can only keep a lid on massive social resentment for so long before things break
I think good governance would listen to polls over metrics.
A good example of how this works is cocaine.
Capitalism and competition isn't always good governance. It works brilliantly in many places, such as restaurants or commodity goods. It fails completely for medicine or banking. It's in between for tech or education, but it's clearly failing for AI.
>I think good governance would listen to polls over metrics.
hypothetically, you own a widget company. you sell a lot of widgets. every month, you are selling even more widgets. the widgets are flying off the shelves. you keep ramping up production, and the consumers keep on buying.
gallup releases a poll that says "people hate widgets".
The public hates ai but also uses ai in mass quantities.
Capitalism abides by your dollars not your voice.
So people can decry ai all they want but if they keep using it, it won't go away.
Even then it's probable that AI is a big enough productivity boost for certain industries that even if no consumers used AI, businesses would still prop AI up enough for it to live on.
Yeah but the public is against progress. The public cries for material needs like medicare for all, universal childcare, a jobs program? These are all clearly foreign actors that want to prevent American progress on AI! They must be Chinese agents for all we know, what sort of American wants to provide healthcare for their family over proudly paying higher utility rates to ensure a new batch of tech bros become billionaires?
The fact that these behemoths are being powered by gas generators is horrifying
Your language is ambiguous — your horror is in reference to natural gas turbine generators (used at these installations) and not gasoline generators (like in a home context)?
Why the horror? I'd prefer the gas remain in the ground, but given the gassy production of US shale oil, I guess I'd rather it be used for this than just flared. I am frustrated that pollutant emissions aren't being policed, and also that the sudden turbine demand plus supply chain issues mean using aeroderivative turbines that are quite a bit less efficient than more complex combined cycle turbines.
https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/how-gas-turbine-power-plants-wor...
We have plenty of fields producing just natural gas in the US. It is not merely a byproduct of oil production.
Only about 35 percent is “associated gas” production from oil production.
> I guess I'd rather it be used for this than just flared
I doubt this is really reducing the rates of flaring and leaky wells. Its just additional demand.
The biggest problem I've seen is they tend to build these somewhat close to residential areas with generation on-site. Often these power generation centers aren't right next to residential areas due to both air and noise pollution. But governments are often seeming to turn a blind eye.
Yes, the noise pollution is insane. Benn Jordan's YT video "Datacenters Behaving Like Acoustic Weapons" is an insightful, scary 30 min video covering the datacenter infrasound noise, and the nasty things infrasound does to people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo
It's not supposed to be permanent, but it also allows them to not waste time waiting on physical locations to be built. Given how highly competitive this all is, I'm not surprised at all.
How did you want to power them? You know the gas generators are the largest power generation source in the US right?
The whole thing is like a video game: your construction and power are your limiting factors. We need to CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS and so on. It's interesting that this is such a limiter on the ground that SpaceX is pursuing AI satellites in space. Truly an incredible time to be alive.
Meta's first five buildings took between two and three years to build, but Williams is almost done building out 200 MW (additional) off-grid power plants in a year, and to match that they're putting their equipment in tents. That raises questions for me:
* Did they expect the next five buildings to also take between two and three years to build if done in the same manner? I'd hope it'd be significantly faster the second time because they've perfected the design, found good local contractors and suppliers, etc.
* How much of the time was the actual structure vs. all the stuff inside they still have to do with the tents?
* How long are they expecting to keep this? Are they anticipating extra problems like leaking roofs?
* What are the "off-grid power plants"? Is this basically a whole bunch of diesel or natural gas generators? [edit: oh, yes, "The site is also powered by 200 megawatts of modular gas turbines". I wonder if they're trucking in the fuel too.] If so, yuck.
When I read the headline I imagined a huge tent with steel beam structure and professional grade covers with HVAC and concrete footprint.
Seems everyone else imagined a camping tent. Different backgrounds I guess.
Yeah, my immediate picture was a blue hobo tent with some extenders sticking out of it.
Technology is getting too in tents for me. /former boy scout
A desperate bid to get around data center bans: disguise them as homeless encampments
It's easier to get datacenters approved than homeless housing projects.
The real unlock, the homeless can shelter for warm next to the gpus, and they can recruit some for some fent if they need workers.
Heck, call it public housing and bringing jobs into the community.
Microsoft had a neat trick here in the Netherlands: instead of opening a new site they decided to make a their existing site higher by adding a few floors.
Ofcourse that only works once the Dutch borg adapts!
Homeless encampments or mountaineering base camps
As always, there are some very erudite comments here on HN, which is why I like the site so much. My erudite comment, or rather question, is this: why aren't these people using AI to solve all these problems? Surely it would be a good test of The Product and maybe it would give s[ck]eptics some food for thought?
Microsoft had trialed datacenters in tents nearly 20 years ago. I remember hearing about their trials at some talks back in the day. Crazy to look back on the dates here, felt like it wasn't that long ago.
https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/hyperscalers/new-from-mi...
Extreme competition
and
Safety
Are opposites.
"All this inference will be lost in time, like GPUs in rain."
Just waiting for the first heist
This is madness. The polling is in and the public hates, positively hates AI. So of course the response is to do AI even more. https://newrepublic.com/article/209163/ai-industry-discoveri...
there are polls where a sample of people say they hate ai. on the other hand, there are a billion+ weekly active users.
from a business perspective, which of those two statistics would you give more weight?
People hate AI datacenters in their backyard. From a business perspective, I hope "obey the local zoning laws" is a fairly high priority.
But a billion active users != number of US citizens that take on the burden of AI. So go build your AI on land where your customers are if they like it so much.
ChatGPT has 112M monthly active users in US, https://searchlab.nl/en/statistics/chatgpt-statistics-2026#g...
Is is OK for them to build datacenters in US?
How many of those people are just feeling like they have a gun to their heads? Use the AI or become unemployed and unemployable?
"People use AI so this must be a revealed preference" is such a bad argument when people are feeling so precarious
>How many of those people are just feeling like they have a gun to their heads? Use the AI or become unemployed and unemployable?
in the context of answering the implied question of the parent (everyone hates it so why do they keep doing it?), it does not matter at all.
Of course it matters
If a large proportion of people are only using AI because they are being threatened with unemployment if they don't, then there's going to be massive resentment building up
You may think that doesn't matter, but it does. History has shown over and over that you can only keep a lid on massive social resentment for so long before things break
Out of the two? Probably the polls. "Active users" is blatantly a weasel metric.
odd choice, mind explaining it a bit more?
why should a company listen to a gallup poll of ~1,500 people over their own internal metrics?
do you think all types of companies should heed the advice of gallup polls over their own metrics, experience, and research?
I think good governance would listen to polls over metrics.
A good example of how this works is cocaine.
Capitalism and competition isn't always good governance. It works brilliantly in many places, such as restaurants or commodity goods. It fails completely for medicine or banking. It's in between for tech or education, but it's clearly failing for AI.
>I think good governance would listen to polls over metrics.
hypothetically, you own a widget company. you sell a lot of widgets. every month, you are selling even more widgets. the widgets are flying off the shelves. you keep ramping up production, and the consumers keep on buying.
gallup releases a poll that says "people hate widgets".
would you stop/slow down your widget production?
Yeah, and they're all willing participants. \s
>Yeah, and they're all willing participants. \s
this does not matter from the business perspective.
The public hates ai but also uses ai in mass quantities.
Capitalism abides by your dollars not your voice.
So people can decry ai all they want but if they keep using it, it won't go away.
Even then it's probable that AI is a big enough productivity boost for certain industries that even if no consumers used AI, businesses would still prop AI up enough for it to live on.
Capitalism abides by dollars only so long as force is not in play. When the Molotov cocktails start flying, dollars lose their grip.
Simone Weil had good theoretical and practical observations on force vs economy 100 years ago.
You don't move up the Cyberdyne Systems org chart by caring what the stupid little meatbags think.
Yeah but the public is against progress. The public cries for material needs like medicare for all, universal childcare, a jobs program? These are all clearly foreign actors that want to prevent American progress on AI! They must be Chinese agents for all we know, what sort of American wants to provide healthcare for their family over proudly paying higher utility rates to ensure a new batch of tech bros become billionaires?