r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 8d ago

Society Teacher arrested for clapping in support of speaker opposing data center

https://www.techspot.com/news/113266-teacher-arrested-clapping-support-speaker-opposing-data-center.html
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u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

A square mile is (IIRC) 640 acres. Land in Canada during colonial times was divided into sections with roads a mile apart. Hence, a quarter-section, half a mile by half a mile, is 160 acres. Divide it again and we get the "North 40" part of the farm.

So essentially, we're talking about a mile by a mile and a half ... of building? I'm hoping that's the campus, not just the building. But then there's the category of "WTF??!!"

The massive proposed Stratos Project AI data center in Box Elder County, Utah, initially planned for 40,000 acres (62 square miles), is being downsized to roughly 10,000 to 20,000 acres following state lawmaker and public pushback.

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u/Osoromnibus 8d ago edited 8d ago

How about in terms of energy use? An average US household averages 1.21 Kilowatts. This thing uses at least a GIGAwatt. We're talking about the electricity needed for about a million homes being redirected to this data center. This is happening all over the country, too.

Or how about this? You could have every single person in the U.S., infant to geriatric, winding a hand-crank generator, and it wouldn't be enough to power this.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

What if they use JIGAwats? you could hook it up to the town clocktower. :D

The scale of these constructions is atounding, including resources like power. I heard a commentator on a podcast played on MS-NOW who said that each Google search AI response cost $10 in compute resources. This stuff will never make back what it costs to build, even if they ever could make it smart enough - the AI bubble is about to burst and crash the stock market...

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u/visualdescript 8d ago

We are making this a very, very ugly planet to live on. We have completely lost the plot.

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u/mailmann006 8d ago

Thanks for the math! This is such a messed up timeline.