From MIT Technology Review · · 3m
The real fight over data centers is about power
Tech companies blame culture wars for backlash against data centers, but the real issue is their enormous appetite for electricity and what that means for communities.
In brief
Tech companies blame culture wars for backlash against data centers, but the real issue is their enormous appetite for electricity and what that means for communities. Data center opposition stems primarily from electricity demands, not culture war anxieties, forcing companies to seek remote locations or generate…
Tech blames culture war
OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane said data centers have become a proxy for public unease about affordability, corporate power, and people losing control over their futures.
“have become a proxy for public unease about affordability, corporate power, and people losing control over their futures”
But it's really about electricity
Spending time in Data Center Alley in Virginia convinced the author that the backlash is more about electricity than Big Tech admits. The industry cannot escape the physical consequences of its enormous appetite for electricity.
Virginia's grid-connected model
In Loudoun County, Virginia, most data centers connect to the existing grid powered by Dominion Energy, which generates much of its electricity from natural gas, cleaner than coal but worse than renewables.
Massive power demands
The average data center in this part of Virginia has a power capacity of fifty four megawatts, more than the power draw of Denver International Airport.
Activist: it was always about power
Elena Schlossberg, a prominent activist against data centers in Virginia, said she is always banging her head against the wall when the industry paints the fight as a culture war.
“It was always about power”
New Virginia rules on transmission
Recent protests led to new state rules requiring data centers to pay fully for the cost of new transmission lines to the grid.
AI companies build their own power
Most AI data centers being built elsewhere are not grid-connected. Companies set up in rural areas with no grid infrastructure, bringing their own power through natural gas turbines and diesel generators for backup.
Anthropic's massive power purchase
Anthropic has reportedly agreed to pay three point four billion dollars for gas turbines in what is described as the largest power generation purchase by an AI company.
Ideal facilities need Chicago-scale power
The smallest data centers attractive for AI training are three hundred megawatts. Ideal facilities are more like six thousand megawatts, the estimated power draw of the city of Chicago, powered by more than twenty power…
Private power generation affects communities
When public utilities build infrastructure at this scale, communities have traditionally expected a say.Now private companies undertake similar projects.Natural gas turbines release air pollutants, and diesel generators are worse.
Companies seek remote locations
If new data centers need their own power generated onsite, they will go where there are the fewest people able to resist them.
Tech looks abroad and beyond
Google announced the day after the elections it will spend fifteen billion dollars on data center projects in Malaysia.
“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now”
In short
Data center opposition stems primarily from electricity demands, not culture war anxieties, forcing companies to seek remote locations or generate their own power with environmental consequences.
