The heat island effect of data centers!

[thewayne]

Two things up front - not all data centers are AI data centers. And this article is a pre-print and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

A recent article in New Scientist, sadly pay-walled, shows that a data center can warm the surrounding area by 9C - that's 16 degrees Fahrenheit! It's ground-level, it's in the air. This completely ignores the noise pollution, including subsonic, of the enormous amount of cooling fans. A lot of the heat is from water-cooling, and the heated water is frequently directly released as steam with no attempt to cool it or reclaim it before direct venting.

One researcher said follow-up needs to be done to see how much is the systems internal to the building generating heat versus the sun directly heating up these huge buildings with large direct surface areas heating up. More than a bit of both, in my casual estimation.

As I said, the New Scientist article is pay-walled. Frequently Slashdot posters will post alternate links, but none have appeared yet. I think it's likely this might be picked up by Ars Technica or Gizmodo today or tomorrow, I'll post an additional link if I can.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2521256-ai-data-centres-can-warm-surrounding-areas-by-up-to-9-1c/

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/26/03/30/2337240/ai-data-centers-can-warm-surrounding-areas-by-up-to-91c

Comments

[ranunculus]

I really like New Scientist, but man, what a firehose of stuff moving through!

[disneydream06]

Again, I wanna know, are all these politicians willing to have one in their backyard?
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

Well, we already knew that large parking lots created heat problems, so I can only imagine that large buildings with lots of heat-generating computers running would do the same. (And of course they wouldn't build in systems like steam capture and water recycling to make their large datacenters more efficient with the large amount of resources they are sucking up. What are you, some kind of bleeding-heart liberal, instead of a True Capitalist?)

[thewayne]

Heh.  I once got into an email argument with a Fox True Believer, and he accused me of being a Progressive.  Before I blocked him, I said 'If by that you mean I want to see things go forward and improve, absolutely.  Because if you don't improve things, then you're inviting entropy, where everything rots.  So yes, I guess I am a progressive.'

[silveradept]

That, yes, is in the definition. Conservatives don't want things to change, because it's good for them now. Progressives want change, because it's not good for everybody yet.