[Casteil]

>No one ever cared about DCs before now.

Fewer people cared, sure.. but it's because until recently they weren't eclipsing power consumption of extremely energy-heavy industries, noticeably driving local residential energy prices up.

They also weren't so heavily noise polluting nor were they typically built in places where their noise pollution affected so many people.

[chasd00]

where does the noise pollution come from? GPU fans? What's more noisy about a DC filled with CPUs and GPUs than a DC filled with just CPUs. I can imagine generators being noisy but that wouldn't be anything different than regular data centers. Also, so few DCs for the AI buildout are actually online where are the noise measurements taken from?

I understand if people don't want a DC near them i just don't understand why they care now. I have some pretty big ones about 3miles from me and next door to both are residential areas and businesses. In fact, some of the biggest ones where i live (Dallas) are so understated you have to know it's a datacenter beforehand to even realize what you're looking at. There are some really large ones in Carrolton TX that are nestled right up to neighborhoods, i bet 95% of the people don't even know they're there and the 5% that do probably work there or host there.

the carrolton dc https://maps.app.goo.gl/mv3wo96ZTuhRBkGy5

[Casteil]

The difference in noise pollution comes from power density & power generation, if they're doing so on site. The power demand (and resulting waste heat) absolutely eclipses that of data centers of olde.

If they're not generating power on site & creating noise/consuming local natural gas resources, they're guzzling grid power and almost certainly contributing to electrical rate increases that affect residential customers disproportionately.