Yeah I don't understand why these new data centres are all in populated areas. AI isn't latency sensitive. Put them in some remote location surely?
Yeah I don't understand why these new data centres are all in populated areas. AI isn't latency sensitive. Put them in some remote location surely?
One of the reasons to build them near populated areas is that it makes it easier to repurpose waste heat to, for example, heat houses in colder climates.
Last I checked waste heat isn't energy dense enough for large-scale district heating. Small pilot projects yes, but it won't heat whole towns.
Denmark would disagree, but with the limitation that the data centre needs to be sited in an appropriate location.
https://danskfjernvarme.dk/viden-vaerktoejer/udgivelser/taen...
https://danmarksdagblad.dk/article/datacenter-paa-15-million...
https://pulse.microsoft.com/da-dk/transform-da-dk/government...
I don't think anywhere would want to be entirely reliant on a single datacentre, at least not at the scale of district heating use in Denmark.
(I gave some pages in Danish, you can search "Denmark datacentre district heat" yourself if you like.)
These are future plans and they lack specificity. I don't think they will come to fruition. The problem is that waste water from data centers isn't hot enough.
Because that is where the existing roads, power and internet connections are. Might not be that significant investment to build those in context of scale. But still it simplifies many steps in building.
> don't understand why these new data centres are all in populated areas
Power connections.
Probably so they have no problems getting people who work there and provide technical services. I mean that seriously without any sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek, it seems the most likely explanation to me.
They need drinking water apparently.
They need to be near a high bandwidth fiber connection, but with relatively cheap land. So the outer edges of major cities are prime locations, with Ashburn VA being the prime example. There is no reason to put them further out because the added costs don't make sense and the data centers actually have minimal impact on the surrounding population outside of hyperventilating conspiracy theorists, Ashburn VA also being the prime example.
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