[scythe]

Electricity costs make the headlines, but I have also heard that the datacenters apparently make a loud perpetual buzzing noise that is audible from a large distance. That sounds like reason enough to oppose one being built near me.

[starkparker]

Data centre noise is a mix of low- and high-frequency intake and exhaust fan noise at the structure level, diesel or turbine generators for the centres supplementing their own power or running backups (sometimes with cooling towers), and no real investment in sound damping.

Combine them with the tendency to build them in open, flat rural areas that have few or no trees or other buildings to baffle the sound, then run them 24/7, and it becomes a chronic issue for people who live nearby (even miles away, if the acoustics are just right).

That shouldn't have been as much of a problem in the US as it's become, but data centre projects get built near where people live because the infrastructure is already there. That naturally raised it as an issue in the UK, where there's less unpopulated space, before data centres of that scale were built: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/05/31/data-centre-...

[gamerslexus]

Data centers behave as acoustic weapons: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo

[HDThoreaun]

This video is pseudoscience https://blog.andymasley.com/p/contra-benn-jordan-data-center...

[gamerslexus]

The article you linked doesn't do much to refute "data centres are acoustic weapons", just insists that symptoms are explainable by audible noise pollution. Sure, that makes it better?

[dogleash]

It's simple. Noise based nuisances from datacenters fall in one of two categories:

A) don't exist, therefore not a concern

B) known to exist, therefore not a concern