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Erin Brockovich Launches Public Registry to Track Data Center Complaints (townflex.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 27 points 3 months ago* (14 children)

The site explicitly mentions "AI data centers", but how do you differentiate AI data centers from... non-AI data centers I guess?

I understand the anti-AI sentiment and environmental issues, etc. but I also think a lot of non-technical people don't realise that literally everything they do online uses a data center.

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  • [–] 26 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Assuming the specs and blueprints are publicly available, an AI data center will look different on the inside compared to a traditional data center. The former will have more GPU racks and probably higher power requirements.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    This, but it may also be apparent even without detailed information. The key difference is an absurd level of power density. So compare footprint to power. Power can be estimated easiest based on backup generators as their smokestacks are almost always visible. The last variable is whatever generator size from CAT, Cummins etc is the most cost effective, or that was still somehow left in a warehouse to actually buy.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (6 children)

    You can have servers at home or in the office, no need for datacenters for everything.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (3 children)

    To connect to those, you’re going through a Datacenter, or your not online.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Unless you use cloudflare, no you don't.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Your ISP likely has multiple datacenters. And even if they don’t, their provider almost certainly does. Your DNS ultimately comes from a datacenter. Your machines clock is likely syncing with a NIST that is, once again, hosted in a datacenter.

    A datacenter isn’t some magical thing that only a few companies have, if you’re dealing with a large anything that hosts its own or others data, they more than likely have a datacenter.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago*

    Not all those companies have their own data centers, but plenty of them would rent space in data centers. You can rent anything from individual servers owned by the data center ("dedicated servers", like what you can get from Hetzner), to space in a shared rack, to an entire 42U rack dedicated to you, to an entire cage (or several cages).

    (a cage is just a part of the data center that's sectioned off in a locked metal mesh cage so only one customer can access it, while still allowing plenty of airflow to and from the servers)

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    It also says the goal isn't to track every data center out of the 4000 operating in the US, just the ones the public is concerned about, yet there are over 8000 user submissions shown.
    This erodes my confidence in the data, as there appear to be no checks or filters.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    There's some dots on the map in places where I know for sure that there's no data center. I think people have submitted addresses of some tech company headquarters for example.

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