> Data centers are really more of a Shelbyville idea!

Diarrhetrius Brown wrote:

OK, I got to ask a serious question for those who might actually know the answer to.

I have seen a couple data centers under construction and they are absolutely huge taking multiple large buildings.

What is actually here? What are they and how do they benefit mankind?

https://assets.aboutamazon.com/dims4/de … ainier.png

Are we sure they aren't enriching uranium?

Sockpuppet wrote:

They hold computers. Many thousands of them.

Those computers need lots of power.

As they consume power, they generate heat.

So you need more power, and other resources like water, to keep them cool.

The computers are used to operate the Internet, apps, phones, and lots of AI.

CI sits in a data center in Iowa.

Look at the Amazon Project Rainier data center - it is not a conventional facility with raised floors, rows of racks, hot/cold aisles, etc. There are 1000s of data centers running quietly inside office buildings throughout the country today. AI data centers are engineered like a fuqing refinery:

https://assets.aboutamazon.com/50/19/30 … terior.png

Sockpuppet wrote:

The Azure North Central data center has migrated a lot of compute to containers they just drop off in the basement. The containers are never opened. They get dropped off and plugged into power and data and coolant. Once there are enough failures inside the container they decommission it, ship it back to wherever, and replace it with a new one.

There are lots of interesting approaches.

I think it is a crime to put them in the south. It’s a basic physics problem.

For DB: by “container” I mean shipping containers. The things you see on ships and trains.

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Diarrhetrius Brown wrote:

What is actually here? What are they and how do they benefit mankind?

I wish more people would ask questions like this.

First of all, data centers aren't new. These very large ones, outside of some military facilities, are what is new.

Also the sheer number of them. The market believes that with AI there is going to be a huge demand in need
for computational infrastructure, for two reasons. First, is just what is required to run AI models. They need big
parallel systems.  Training them, and calculating the large neural nets that power their transformations, is even
more intensive. Second, is that AI is expected to write computer code. A lot of computer code. That is going to
need systems to run it.

The need is perceived as so great these companies are willing to sacrifice their talent pool to pour money into
AI infrastructure development.

Most of the opposition I see to datacenters are:

1. anti-development arguments like taking farmland or taking advantage of a poor community, use too many
resources, etc.

2. anti-corporate arguments, often repurposing the (very true) point that datacenters don't hire a lot of people
within the local community. Some security guards, an occasional trev, but most of the time, the jobs they create
are the temporary ones required to build them.


Notice that none of these arguments really address the questions of if we really are going to need that much
compute power, and even if we did -- who exactly is going to pay to use these machines?

Jurijknotpeemus wrote:

Why knot make data centar in arctic region? Cheepar two kool and lots off sun in summar

Networking requirements would be very difficult, construction would be prohibitively expensive, and Antarctica, per international treaty, does not belong to any nation.

Phillip_McCavity wrote:

Sorry you said Arctic...many of the same problems, networking and construction costs. It would likely have to be in Canadian jurisdiction, which might not be too bad.

I've been pretty close to the top of the earth, environment there is just fragile. Would be better to put them in places like North Dakota, or maybe use old military facilities as they are already polluted.

Nordic countries are another option.

The ironic thing is that the locations most willing to bring in a datacenter are the worst places to put them from a thermal perspective.

Spanky wrote:

Nordic countries are another option.

The ironic thing is that the locations most willing to bring in a datacenter are the worst places to put them from a thermal perspective.

I agree, the southern states are often more open to this sort of thing.

For security reasons, it is best if datacenters not be permitted to much concentration in anyone spot. A single nuclear explosion should not
cause a digital collapse.


I don't think we will need as much capacity as they are building. I suspect that with more efficiency a lot of these datacenters will be big empty
buildings or running well below their capacity.

And I can't see them as being a good investment. You could talk about the trevs they displace, but this doesn't take into account the growth in
code that is produced, that will have to be maintained by someone, both AI and human.

Diarrhetrius Brown wrote:

OK, I got to ask a serious question for those who might actually know the answer to.

I have seen a couple data centers under construction and they are absolutely huge taking multiple large buildings.

What is actually here? What are they and how do they benefit mankind?

They are a huge stock market fraud.

wrote:

They are a huge stock market fraud.

THIS

., wrote:

ever heard of Alaska? Also if you're just training or tuning you don't wouldn't need a lot of networking.

Greenland. 
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wrote:

They are a huge stock market fraud.

For 80+ percent of inference, you could do it for less on a loaded Mac Studio.

Every month, local models improve.

When the local models get good enough, why would I need slimy Sam or Dario at all?