Fantastic. From the rundown on predicted power consumption to a potential silver lining wrapup, this hit all the right notes for my fledgling understanding of AI and its environmental, societal, and professional impact.
Anecdotally, there's a small Louisiana parish (pop. ~15,000) in which the main town (pop. ~1,500, about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge) is set to acquire a new business partner—an AI data center: estimated cost, ~$2.5B for building and initial servers.
Power source: a dedicated line from the next door Entergy nuclear reactor. Cooling? The adjacent Mississippi River.
Benefit? Several thousand jobs during construction, several hundred after, and tax revenue.
The parish continues to struggle with access to broadband, often dependent on cellular, although Starlink is an emerging solution.
Honestly, I can't think of a worse place in the USA for an AI data center. The ambient heat alone makes cooling costs higher than they need to be, and the humidity is an extra whammy - plus the threat of massive hurricanes. If I had to pick a place where I'd want a massive data center? Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. At least for a data center dedicated to training (versus inference, where latency is a bigger deal), you could operate the data center probably on just ambient air conditioning and need no water to cool it at all - literally just open the windows to Arctic temperatures.
Fantastic. From the rundown on predicted power consumption to a potential silver lining wrapup, this hit all the right notes for my fledgling understanding of AI and its environmental, societal, and professional impact.
Anecdotally, there's a small Louisiana parish (pop. ~15,000) in which the main town (pop. ~1,500, about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge) is set to acquire a new business partner—an AI data center: estimated cost, ~$2.5B for building and initial servers.
Power source: a dedicated line from the next door Entergy nuclear reactor. Cooling? The adjacent Mississippi River.
Benefit? Several thousand jobs during construction, several hundred after, and tax revenue.
The parish continues to struggle with access to broadband, often dependent on cellular, although Starlink is an emerging solution.
Honestly, I can't think of a worse place in the USA for an AI data center. The ambient heat alone makes cooling costs higher than they need to be, and the humidity is an extra whammy - plus the threat of massive hurricanes. If I had to pick a place where I'd want a massive data center? Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. At least for a data center dedicated to training (versus inference, where latency is a bigger deal), you could operate the data center probably on just ambient air conditioning and need no water to cool it at all - literally just open the windows to Arctic temperatures.