America’s Data Center Conundrum(video🎥)
Many Americans are facing rising electricity bills & increased taxes, as a result of data centers for AI infrastructure.
In case you were wondering, the United States has more data centers within its borders, than any other country in the world. According to Data Center Solutions, there are approximately 5,388 data centers in the U.S., which accounts for 45% of global operational data centers.
📍Data Center Locations
Map from ‘U.S. Data Centers Map’ website. You can check out how many data centers are in your state & where they are located, as well.
The highest concentration of data centers are located in Northern Virginia, Dallas, Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Chicago, Atlanta, Portland, New York/New Jersey, Seattle, and Los Angeles, according to a 2023 report by Real Assets Advisors.
New Data Center Projects
Some notable, new projects, include data centers and power plant construction(to support the power for data centers) in Texas, Louisiana and Georgia. Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, Vantage Data Centers and Atlas Development are all among the companies leading these projects.
Rising Electricity Costs Near Data Centers
“Did your electricity bill look like a car note last month?” One man in Georgia complains about his rising bill, who lives near a data center. Another woman says many customers are requesting new meters to be installed because their rate increases are not matching their electricity consumption patterns.
Many states are giving tax breaks and cheap electricity rates to the data center companies. They also wind up over burdening the power grid in the area. Many electricity customers in these areas are also reporting inconsistent electricity, like rolling blackouts.
Tax Breaks for AI Data Center Developers
Massive tax breaks are being issued for data centers. This is usually a great way to stimulate innovation in a particular industry. However, many Americans don’t even agree with building massive amounts of data centers, especially when it’s going to be in the city you live in. The amount and reasons for the tax breaks, deserves a little more scrutiny, especially in relation to simultaneous property tax increases. This is why local residents should be able to vote on allowing these projects in their communities. They should be given a sales pitch, so to speak, on the pros and cons and then a vote should be conducted. Just my two cents. 🤷🏻♀️
According to Redfin, Americans are spending on average, about $250 per month on property taxes, a nationwide increase of about 30%, as compared to the previous 5 year period, between 2019-2024. While there are many factors that account for increased property taxes, these data centers and their tax exemptions are among those factors.
ROI ~ “The AI Report that is Spooking Wall Street” Gizmodo
There is a pretty well understood principle in business, that at some point, your business is supposed to be profitable. Usually that breakeven point is well defined in your business plan. Something to keep in mind - AI infrastructure involves large, upfront, capital expenditures, which naturally pushes break even points further out, depending on projected profit margins, price points, market demand, etc. After reading this article, it sounds like lack of market interest, may be the main factor spooking investors. In my view, there is a point of going overboard with AI. Maybe people are starting to identify this point in certain proposed uses.
A Warning from Sam Altman ~ an ‘AI bubble may be forming ‘
“I do think some investors are likely to lose a lot of money, and I don’t want to minimize that—that sucks,” Altman said, according to the Financial Times. “There will be periods of irrational exuberance. But on the whole, the value for society will be huge.” Sam Altman, Open AI.
Remember, Sam Altman has teamed up with Oracle’s CEO, Larry Ellison and the investor is the CEO of SoftBank for Project Stargate. One of their pilot data centers is being built in Abilene, Texas. This sounds like a preemptive apology. ….Sorry about your billions, man, ‘that sucks’!
🎥Venessa Wingardh “The real reason your power bill doubled (it’s not inflation)”16:31
Wherever you might land on the AI topic, it is here and it is happening. This is brand new territory, and it’s important for us to not only stay informed, but to work out how we feel about the impacts of these projects(both short & long term), regarding the cost; financial, health wise, environmental, ethical, as well as opportunity cost. If you are not thrilled about the idea of a data center being located in your city, the advice at the end of the video, is worth its weight in gold. Sign petitions, call your Representatives and attend city council meetings. That seems to have worked well for the folks in Arizona that stopped an Amazon data center project. 👌
I hope you found some value in this post! Thanks for reading. Until next time ✌️
https://cascadebusnews.com/google-invested-more-than-600-million-in-oregon-this-year/
Locals need a sales pitch. The fact that electricity bills go up, and energy brown outs, and water table is bled dry,
Seems only fair to vote.
I would say these people need to extremely careful where these data centers are put. Saying that over 5,000
Of em?
What in the world does that mean? 45% of the worlds data centers? Obviously we need more mining coal, build nuclear plants, gas, drill baby drill.
Seems very predatory to build data center suck peoples water rendering any property worth less and maybe that’s the point too.
Controlled land grabs for data centers
We have Google in The Dalles they have built 6 huge towers ominous looking too
For AI?
They are literally tearing up streets to line water lines etc.
one wonders why do we need all this data?
Well in the energy sector no more green scams net zero restraints on common sense. So hoping electric bills go down.
Heard one Tic Toc commentator say your electric bill will be as high as your mortgage every month. Lord that would crush everybody.
Cheap abundant as clean as possible reliant juice to keep us under the spell and geofencing surveillance State that only wants our best, unless we prove to be a rascal asking questions.
Let’s pray 🙏 data centers do not run us high and dry.
Being a Luddite I’d be happy with no data centers no 5G towers no balloons 🎈 as satellites.
Take us back to pre smart phone and video games and insatiable desires for data
Data us
Machines might one day say we don’t need humans
In God we Trust
The Beast comes from AI me thinks
Tesla would be an interesting interview. The Ether you say?
Free energy?
Me thinks as incredible as engineering is with power generation with hydro, nuclear, coal plants, diesel, gas, natural gas,
One must ask what would Tesla do?
Data is Gold.
Water is more valuable
Homes are sacred
I’d say data center you pay down your neighbors electric bill with some of your profits. You make whole people you’ve displaced.
Profits distributed to locals.
I really need to find out google locally how why what conditions
How does this area benefit?
👋