If I could give any advice to the people planning those data centers, they've got it all wrong. They assume that since they're noisy that we will plop them smack in the middle of some good farm land, surround them with corn fields and it solves the noise problem.
In Michigan cities there is plenty of vacant land. Thousands of acres of vacant land. Here in Lansing the old GM owns two large plots where factories stood stamping out Oldsmobile's. There is all the power you would ever need. They're surrounded by other factories making possibly more noise than even a data centers fans. A small business community that has been decimated by the GM employees business in the neighborhood leaving.
So where do they ask to put a small data center? Right in the city's entertainment district! Makes less sense than putting it on farmland. Look Michigan needs the jobs, just a little common sense would go a long ways.
I worked in a small DC (I think it had about 10k servers at its peak). The only time there was noise outside was if the generators were running due to an extended power outage or maintenance. We had a few trailer generators that were added on as capacity increased. Where I worked was right on the other side of the wall to one of the computer rooms and I don’t recall hearing anything. It only got loud when the door was physically opened to walk in the room, that noise was mostly from fans.
I also toured one of our larger data centers, and even inside the small cube farm area it felt like a normal office. The noise only picked up once inside the room with the servers.
Noise during construction would probably be worse than noise during operation.
Anecdata, but I was once on a tour of a colocation DC. Located in Vegas, near the old town in a basement of some office building. Completely unassuming from the outside. Inside it was a little loud, but not terribly so. Busy street level noise maybe.
It does but there is only a chance their usage will be benign depending on location and how much volume of the natural water they are going to be artificially heating. That heat has to go somewhere and more places than not could be overwhelmed because it was cheaper and more convenient to suck up 3/4 of a local stream to heat rather than pipe out deep into one of the lakes.
Also Michigan isn't perpetually wet, the summers can get dry at times which means natural sources slow down and ground water recedes and data centers can't/won't scale down utilization based on seasonal conditions. If they end up relying on pulling from ground water, they might not see any limits or problems on their time scales, but 20 years down the road when the local's natural springs and artesian wells stop performing they might get pissed.
All that said, Michigan is pretty good at trying to protect its water, and I expect there to be a decent amount of pushback and opposition to any irresponsible planning with regards to water usage. But on the other hand, we do have a number of corrupt politicians which a big tech company could easily line the pockets of.
They still sometimes use water from limited resources or add a nontrivial amount of heat to a natural body of water or river. They also often pull it out of aquifers. The largest data center I can find is in Iowa and uses over a billion gallons of water a year, equivalent to tens of thousands of homes.
Now Iowa probably has more water than almost anywhere, but still. Protesting the usage is valid.
Wouldn’t a water treatment plant solve this, so water can be reused and they aren’t pumping it out of the ground, using it for cooling briefly, then dumping it? This idea of constant fresh water being used doesn’t make much sense to me.
>This idea of constant fresh water being used doesn’t make much sense to me.
They're taking advantage of inappropriately priced industrial water.
Regardless of if it makes sense, that's what they're doing. Using a lot of cold groundwater and then dumping it.
It would be much more expensive to have a closed loop of cooling water (and you're not going to get a lot of cooling on a humid 90 degree Iowa summer day)
Seems like northern Canada would be a good spot. Plenty of water and cold, and not many people to object to living next door. For most of the year they could just run the pipes outside to cool them down.
The real estate is usually purchased only after the following requirements are assured, and there are many: Local and regional power grid robustness which includes: ability to service long-term capacity commitments, whether the developer will need to invest in and build substations themselves, and the legality and availability for on-site power generation (natural gas or electric). All of those requirements generally come after an assessment of local and state government appetite and willingness to cut red tape for such deals and provide favorable environmental policy.
Only as many as are needed to physically rack the hardware and do hand-on maintenance. The people actually using the servers shouldn’t be located on-site.
A giant datacenter of AI scale will have a dozen or so contractors for physical plant on-site pretty much every single day as long as the thing is in operation. More if a refresh project is ongoing, which after a few years will be more less all the time.
They certainly are not high density employers, but these huge hyperscale facilities typically employ 150-300 people directly, and probably at least that many on average in contracting roles. They are massive facilities.
Data centers create some construction jobs while they are being built but not much after that. A few people to keep an eye on things, swap out failed equipment, accept deliveries.
I think the news is misleading people on the number of jobs it will create. I mentioned data centers not creating many jobs to my dad, a news junkie in Michigan, and he said he read it would create over 1k jobs. That must have been including temporary construction jobs.
Google's data center complex in Council Bluffs, IA is one of the largest in the world and it employs ... 250 people excluding temporary construction/expansion jobs.
These things don't really supply "jobs" in any sort of way that is noticeable to the surrounding community. A couple hundred people. The idea that DCs produce jobs is basically a false hope given these communities.
Well, at least a DC fills vacant lots that might otherwise attract crime.
I don't know what realistic alternative the residents have in mind, but I'd say even a few jobs is better than the urban decay that's been destroying Michigan.
The noise problem is caused by fans (air cooling). Data centers cooled by water do not have noisy fans. My understand is modern data center designs use close loop water systems, eliminating noise and water table issues.
You are correct the one that I referenced in Lansing's entertainment district is water cooled. They do not point out in newspaper accounts one of the reasons for its location there is they're supplying the heated water to the towns steam district. That heated water could possibly migrate chances of a electricity rate increase.
But as several data center engineers I have spoken to agreed with me that if it was put on one of the many empty parking lots West of the Capitol it would be surrounded by mostly empty government buildings where a majority of state workers are working from home. They would still be able to access the steam district.
If it's true closed loop (i.e. no water evaporation to cool the loop) then how are they cooling the radiators without fans?
Honestly, if there is a place it would have made sense to do evaporative cooling it was probably Michigan anyways... but I hope the closed loop option ends up working out just as well.
if you read the article instead of just criticizing the headline:
> They listened to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel criticizing the lack of transparency with DTE, the utility that's associated with the Saline Township proposal, and legislators who protested tax breaks for data center projects.
> ...
> "We're talking about 1.4 gigawatts, which is, of course, enough to provide energy to a city of a million people," Nessel said. "I think we should be taking this extremely seriously, don't you? Do you guys trust DTE? Do you trust Open AI? Do we trust Oracle to look out for our best interests here in Michigan?"
this wasn't just a random group of 100 people, they were organized enough to get the state AG as well as multiple state legislators to speak. seems fairly newsworthy to me.
In Lansing, it was below freezing and windy most of the day. If I noticed 100 people standing around on the pavement for hours in that, I'd probably imagine they deserved at least some regard for their concerns. But then, I'm not a Michigan politician that needs to get gamer Johnny out of my basement and on to a cushy non-profit no-show kickback job, courtesy of whatever big tech outfit wants a data center.
It’s not just this group. A co-worker of mine went to his town meeting about a proposed data center. When he showed up it was standing room only and they had to move the meeting to a bigger venue. I’ve heard stories like this from a few people now around Michigan where they have been trying to put data centers. No one wants them.
There is very little common space in Michigan. There is a lot of private land, and a lot of public land, but very few spaces where people congregate. So when they do, it stands out quite a bit.
The threshold is an organization organizing it. Getting 100 people out demonstrates your political power to your supporters and the people you seek to influence. Getting 1,000 people demonstrates that you have more of it.
The headline could be construed to mean the data centers will be installed in the Michigan Capitol. I would have written it as "More than 100 rally at Michigan Capitol against data centers".
The "at" does the trick there and the headline seems fine. Yours leaves no room for that kind of parse confusion, but I think English prefers to leave space/time adverbs and adverbial phrases at the end.
I was recently reminded how easily the public can be whipped into a frenzy of ignorance when I happened to revisit the Guardian article from 8 years ago that claimed data centers would use 20% of global electricity by 2025.'
The article is about all internet-connected devices:
"Global computing power demand from internet-connected devices, high resolution video streaming, emails, surveillance cameras and a new generation of smart TVs is increasing 20% a year, consuming roughly 3-5% of the world’s electricity in 2015, says Swedish researcher Anders Andrae."
It's not crazy to think it might increase to 20%. How much is it really in 2025?
The IEA periodically publishes these estimates. Some years they discuss client devices and/or networks. What's always been interesting to me in those reports is that mobile networks use about the same amount of power globally as data centers.
If I could give any advice to the people planning those data centers, they've got it all wrong. They assume that since they're noisy that we will plop them smack in the middle of some good farm land, surround them with corn fields and it solves the noise problem.
In Michigan cities there is plenty of vacant land. Thousands of acres of vacant land. Here in Lansing the old GM owns two large plots where factories stood stamping out Oldsmobile's. There is all the power you would ever need. They're surrounded by other factories making possibly more noise than even a data centers fans. A small business community that has been decimated by the GM employees business in the neighborhood leaving.
So where do they ask to put a small data center? Right in the city's entertainment district! Makes less sense than putting it on farmland. Look Michigan needs the jobs, just a little common sense would go a long ways.
Only the xAI ones are noisy because they (illegally?) used mobile generators to meet electricity needs
Genuine question - are DCs really that noisy from outside? If so what is the source of the noise?
I worked in a small DC (I think it had about 10k servers at its peak). The only time there was noise outside was if the generators were running due to an extended power outage or maintenance. We had a few trailer generators that were added on as capacity increased. Where I worked was right on the other side of the wall to one of the computer rooms and I don’t recall hearing anything. It only got loud when the door was physically opened to walk in the room, that noise was mostly from fans.
I also toured one of our larger data centers, and even inside the small cube farm area it felt like a normal office. The noise only picked up once inside the room with the servers.
Noise during construction would probably be worse than noise during operation.
Anecdata, but I was once on a tour of a colocation DC. Located in Vegas, near the old town in a basement of some office building. Completely unassuming from the outside. Inside it was a little loud, but not terribly so. Busy street level noise maybe.
Cooling system.
In some cases on-site natural gas generators have been used and those do make a lot of noise
Nothing in the article talks about noise pollution. Their concern is about resource usage - water and electricity.
Is water an issue in Michigan? I thought they have plenty of water.
It does but there is only a chance their usage will be benign depending on location and how much volume of the natural water they are going to be artificially heating. That heat has to go somewhere and more places than not could be overwhelmed because it was cheaper and more convenient to suck up 3/4 of a local stream to heat rather than pipe out deep into one of the lakes.
Also Michigan isn't perpetually wet, the summers can get dry at times which means natural sources slow down and ground water recedes and data centers can't/won't scale down utilization based on seasonal conditions. If they end up relying on pulling from ground water, they might not see any limits or problems on their time scales, but 20 years down the road when the local's natural springs and artesian wells stop performing they might get pissed.
All that said, Michigan is pretty good at trying to protect its water, and I expect there to be a decent amount of pushback and opposition to any irresponsible planning with regards to water usage. But on the other hand, we do have a number of corrupt politicians which a big tech company could easily line the pockets of.
They still sometimes use water from limited resources or add a nontrivial amount of heat to a natural body of water or river. They also often pull it out of aquifers. The largest data center I can find is in Iowa and uses over a billion gallons of water a year, equivalent to tens of thousands of homes.
Now Iowa probably has more water than almost anywhere, but still. Protesting the usage is valid.
Wouldn’t a water treatment plant solve this, so water can be reused and they aren’t pumping it out of the ground, using it for cooling briefly, then dumping it? This idea of constant fresh water being used doesn’t make much sense to me.
>This idea of constant fresh water being used doesn’t make much sense to me.
They're taking advantage of inappropriately priced industrial water.
Regardless of if it makes sense, that's what they're doing. Using a lot of cold groundwater and then dumping it.
It would be much more expensive to have a closed loop of cooling water (and you're not going to get a lot of cooling on a humid 90 degree Iowa summer day)
Seems like northern Canada would be a good spot. Plenty of water and cold, and not many people to object to living next door. For most of the year they could just run the pipes outside to cool them down.
Sure. With the suggestion of locating them on the sites of old factories: how does data center water usage compare to the factories?
> over a billion gallons of water a year, equivalent to tens of thousands of homes.
So, basically none?
The real estate is usually purchased only after the following requirements are assured, and there are many: Local and regional power grid robustness which includes: ability to service long-term capacity commitments, whether the developer will need to invest in and build substations themselves, and the legality and availability for on-site power generation (natural gas or electric). All of those requirements generally come after an assessment of local and state government appetite and willingness to cut red tape for such deals and provide favorable environmental policy.
> Look Michigan needs the jobs, just a little common sense would go a long ways.
There will be few jobs created after construction is complete, and the ones created won't pay anything like typical tech comp.
Most people will be very happy with a fraction of the typical tech comp if they have a job.
Most people who need a job won't have that job at that data center.
Maybe you should calibrate your definition of what "typical tech comp" means and what roles that applies to, and at what companies.
Median US Salary for a Data Center Technician is around 80k.
Median US Salary is $63,360.
Median household income is around $75,763 (Detroit CSA #s).
There's a lot of people out of work right now.
How many people work in a modern data center?
Only as many as are needed to physically rack the hardware and do hand-on maintenance. The people actually using the servers shouldn’t be located on-site.
A giant datacenter of AI scale will have a dozen or so contractors for physical plant on-site pretty much every single day as long as the thing is in operation. More if a refresh project is ongoing, which after a few years will be more less all the time.
They certainly are not high density employers, but these huge hyperscale facilities typically employ 150-300 people directly, and probably at least that many on average in contracting roles. They are massive facilities.
How much will the local energy prices rise due to the datacenter? More than that offset by the employees they hire I bet.
As a Michigan resident, I can’t agree more. Also areas like Flint and Pontiac are in need of jobs and economic development.
Data centers create some construction jobs while they are being built but not much after that. A few people to keep an eye on things, swap out failed equipment, accept deliveries.
I think the news is misleading people on the number of jobs it will create. I mentioned data centers not creating many jobs to my dad, a news junkie in Michigan, and he said he read it would create over 1k jobs. That must have been including temporary construction jobs.
Google's data center complex in Council Bluffs, IA is one of the largest in the world and it employs ... 250 people excluding temporary construction/expansion jobs.
Adds about the same number of jobs as single Costco, except this particular Costco will increase your electricity bill even if you don't work there.
Are those all Google employees, or does 250 also include long-term on-site contractors? I'm thinking security, maintenance, janitorial, etc
These things don't really supply "jobs" in any sort of way that is noticeable to the surrounding community. A couple hundred people. The idea that DCs produce jobs is basically a false hope given these communities.
Well, at least a DC fills vacant lots that might otherwise attract crime.
I don't know what realistic alternative the residents have in mind, but I'd say even a few jobs is better than the urban decay that's been destroying Michigan.
I'd imagine it's because dragging the fiber to middle of nowhere can be pretty expensive
Can someone correct me if I am wrong?
The noise problem is caused by fans (air cooling). Data centers cooled by water do not have noisy fans. My understand is modern data center designs use close loop water systems, eliminating noise and water table issues.
You are correct the one that I referenced in Lansing's entertainment district is water cooled. They do not point out in newspaper accounts one of the reasons for its location there is they're supplying the heated water to the towns steam district. That heated water could possibly migrate chances of a electricity rate increase.
But as several data center engineers I have spoken to agreed with me that if it was put on one of the many empty parking lots West of the Capitol it would be surrounded by mostly empty government buildings where a majority of state workers are working from home. They would still be able to access the steam district.
If it's true closed loop (i.e. no water evaporation to cool the loop) then how are they cooling the radiators without fans?
Honestly, if there is a place it would have made sense to do evaporative cooling it was probably Michigan anyways... but I hope the closed loop option ends up working out just as well.
Unfortunately no.
Evaporative cooling works best in low humidity areas. That's why it's so often deployed in deserts.
Closed loop water requires air fans.
Are you suggesting the people who plan data centres are stupid and/or not profit maximising?
How is "more than 100" people "rallying" even remotely newsworthy? What's the threshold, three?
if you read the article instead of just criticizing the headline:
> They listened to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel criticizing the lack of transparency with DTE, the utility that's associated with the Saline Township proposal, and legislators who protested tax breaks for data center projects.
> ...
> "We're talking about 1.4 gigawatts, which is, of course, enough to provide energy to a city of a million people," Nessel said. "I think we should be taking this extremely seriously, don't you? Do you guys trust DTE? Do you trust Open AI? Do we trust Oracle to look out for our best interests here in Michigan?"
this wasn't just a random group of 100 people, they were organized enough to get the state AG as well as multiple state legislators to speak. seems fairly newsworthy to me.
In Lansing, it was below freezing and windy most of the day. If I noticed 100 people standing around on the pavement for hours in that, I'd probably imagine they deserved at least some regard for their concerns. But then, I'm not a Michigan politician that needs to get gamer Johnny out of my basement and on to a cushy non-profit no-show kickback job, courtesy of whatever big tech outfit wants a data center.
It’s not just this group. A co-worker of mine went to his town meeting about a proposed data center. When he showed up it was standing room only and they had to move the meeting to a bigger venue. I’ve heard stories like this from a few people now around Michigan where they have been trying to put data centers. No one wants them.
Three people could be a group of friends. More than 100 is clearly different.
Given that there are usually _zero_ people rallying in Lansing, this is notable enough for the local newspaper.
there are dozens of us !
It would be noteworthy if 100 people showed up to my 5 year old's piano recital.
not so much for a 300 acre noisy, water hogging data center.
It wouldn't be newsworthy if we could trust our representatives not give extra weight to the opinions of the people who yell the loudest.
There is very little common space in Michigan. There is a lot of private land, and a lot of public land, but very few spaces where people congregate. So when they do, it stands out quite a bit.
> What's the threshold, three?
The threshold is an organization organizing it. Getting 100 people out demonstrates your political power to your supporters and the people you seek to influence. Getting 1,000 people demonstrates that you have more of it.
Since the population is around 112k-114k people that would be around 111,900 people didn’t rally on the low end.
Lol, I prefer that version of the headline:
"99.9% of residents did not show up to protest new datacenters in Michigan"
The headline could be construed to mean the data centers will be installed in the Michigan Capitol. I would have written it as "More than 100 rally at Michigan Capitol against data centers".
The "at" does the trick there and the headline seems fine. Yours leaves no room for that kind of parse confusion, but I think English prefers to leave space/time adverbs and adverbial phrases at the end.
https://archive.is/8uNAJ
I was recently reminded how easily the public can be whipped into a frenzy of ignorance when I happened to revisit the Guardian article from 8 years ago that claimed data centers would use 20% of global electricity by 2025.'
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/11/tsunami-...
The article is about all internet-connected devices:
"Global computing power demand from internet-connected devices, high resolution video streaming, emails, surveillance cameras and a new generation of smart TVs is increasing 20% a year, consuming roughly 3-5% of the world’s electricity in 2015, says Swedish researcher Anders Andrae."
It's not crazy to think it might increase to 20%. How much is it really in 2025?
The normally cited estimate of 2-4% already includes all networks, wired and wireless, and all client devices, mobile phones, and whatnot.
> normally cited estimate of 2-4%
I haven't seen that. Interestingly it's less than 2015, per the article.
The IEA periodically publishes these estimates. Some years they discuss client devices and/or networks. What's always been interesting to me in those reports is that mobile networks use about the same amount of power globally as data centers.
I guess we have to build them in space.
At least in space the local residents don't complain
Hippies...