A data center is a big grey box that sits there humming quietly, and that's it. They do require power and lots of it, but unlikely steam engines they'll happily use solar, nuclear or anything else.
It was very loud inside, but you couldn't hear it from outside unless the power failed and the generators came on.
Thats what anti-AI activists say. A decibel meter is about $20. For some reason the people in those videos never have one.
For perspective, the inside of your home is probably about 40. When I turn on my box fan it's about 55.
That said they can be loud when the generators are running. It's possible that when the grid can't keep up the volume goes up, but thats not meant to be a long term state.
In this case it's a constant 60dB metallic whine. I would be livid if they built this near my home.
In another thread someone claimed a town grew around a new hospital and that it didn't have a datacenter. That town has at least one AT&T Datacenter, a supercomputer that's more AI than traditional computing, and of course said hospital likely has one.
Force them to either install mufflers and proper exhausts on their generators or build their own power infrastructure. They don't now because nobody makes them and it would cost money.
It's like when California "destroyed the entire economy" by raising minimum wage. All the jobs are still there, prices are mostly the same. The only thing that moved were the goal posts.
EDIT: recently I read about (I guess on HN) a new planned Amazon datacenter that was super environment-friendly. So in fact it might eventually be possible to create silent DCs but we'll see how this turns out.
Public hearing set for nearly 650 diesel generators tied to Amazon data center.
I am interested to learn where the 96db comes from.
I see only vague claims about up to 96db inside of a server rack, but could not locate a concrete measurement or method used to determine this number.
A decibel meter is about $20 on Amazon, often cheaper. I dont know what their agenda is, but they've got one.
As much as I doubt that spreading of the data centers is a good thing, noise is not the weapon to wield. Unless we are talking the center of a quaint town. And possibly not even then.
I tend to like not fearing starvation every year, not fearing freezing to death every year and not having the vast majority of my kids die. Industrialization led to all that.
So you're saying the UK should never have built a railway system? It sounds like tech is right.
There's now a gargantuan amount of documentation about their impact: - insane noise levels 24/7, you can hear them even at miles away - virtually no jobs brought to the place, besides some construction work early on - massive drain of local resources - massive eye sore
Like, I'm not against data centers per se, but you tell me they building one few miles from my house, I'm listing it the day I hear it and escaping as far as I can.
Can you share a link or two to this? Hearing a data center from miles away sounds suspicious.
Trains still do that today. They cut a locality in half with only certain crossing points being allowed. But at least enough people ride the train they can feel it's worthwhile.