I think resistance will strengthen between now and 2028 and rise to the level of a factor in the presidential primaries and election.
The anti-tech and anti-tech oligarch themes have tremendous populist resonance.
Our country is going to pot. It seems like both sides don’t mind that China is going to slaughter us with AI. I wouldn’t care except it could affect all of us. It’s sad that idiots are in charge on both sides.
The massive power requirements of data centers should make us wonder what all of those transistors are doing. It’s some sort of exercise in brute force.
Power consumption should be less of a concern than how the zillions of computations are affecting us.
Miami Rebel wrote: “Data centers are becoming a political hot potato sweeping the nation, and it’s not just red vs. blue or rural vs. urban.”
No, it’s really China vs. US. Most of the opposition is misinformation. This article is full of it. Energy costs are reduced by data centers and water usage is overstated.
No sensationalism there. Data centers are not an issue if there is proper planning for them. Its just like any other development. If you have a township or county planning commission that is in bed with the developer and allows massive development without requiring the developer to pay for additional infrastructure or putting it in place before the development comes "online," then the community will suffer. It happens with residential development all the time. Housing or apartments are build with no expansion of road networks and the roads become clogged and rush hour becomes a nightmare. Or the township allows a shopping mall without adequate additional roads and traffic becomes a nightmare. Or out West (especially in Colorado), residential communities are built that suck up water without adequate planning and the other residents suffer. Usually the planning commissioners are in bed with the developers and it all flies under the radar. But if proper planning occurs, you can have a data center that brings in millions of tax dollars and defrays residential taxes and provides money for all kinds of projects without reduction in residential utility availability.
Why not just build them in a foreign country like they do with the rest of the US industry?
You are misreading the opposition to this massive data center build-out. The people I know who are most opposed to it are actually some of the most knowledgeable people in the field, including former top scientists, programmers, and technicians. Beyond that, plenty of regular people are getting hit by the side effects. Regional electricity and water rates are climbing, and the run on silicon wafer production has sent memory and hardware prices through the roof. The pushback isn't uneducated; it is coming from people who either understand the tech or are paying the bill for it.
Energy Consumption: A primary reason for the hype is that these facilities require power on the scale of entire cities, which has driven up utility costs in several state.
The anti-tech and anti-tech oligarch themes have tremendous populist resonance.
And a good reason to do so.
The data centers need to be placed in northern Canada, near arctic waters.
Such blanket and mob opposition to Data Centers in FL is ignorance on parade.