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No, the data centers aren't blowing up. The growth of AI has increased the need for places to keep the servers that store the data that record everything that passes through the world-wide web. Tremendous investments are being made in them. Amazon is building $87 billion worth of data centers.
Chances are that these huge digital libraries won't involve the employment of thousands of digital librarians but they will have other effects on the neighborhoods where they are built. The most significant are the demand that will be made for electrical, water and other municipal services.
At the same time that the country is attempting an irrational move away from fossil fuels in electrical generation by adopting "renewable" sources such as untested and unreliable solar and wind power, it will face a dramatically increased power requirement. The current giants of AI have already leased over 2.3 gigawatts of power in North America this year. In the planning stages are data centers that will consume another 15 gigawatts of power that could supply four million homes.
Perhaps these data centers could be supplied exclusively with power produced by solar panels and wind turbines. Maybe they should be required to do so.
instituteforenergyresearch.com
The average nameplate capacity of newly installed wind turbines has risen to 2.75 MW. Supplying the currently leased data center demand would require at least 836 turbines operating at maximum capacity 24/7/365, an impossible situation. In the case of solar panels, typical powerhouse additions will produce 5 kw from 500 square feet, or so they say. The currently leased data centers would need an array of 460,000 solar panels covering well over 5300 acres or about 8 1/2 square miles that would produce power during only a portion of the day.
greencitysolar.net
The variability of renewable power supply means that sufficient power must be available from dedicated sources in amounts available not only to the data centers but also to the surrounding areas. According to plans this demand will increase quickly. No doubt messages are being passed back and forth by management about the subject at this very moment.
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