NEW DELHI: A growing wave of public backlash in the US against data centres has seen politicians across the country scramble to keep up. Public sentiment has turned against the expansion of data centres.
Packed with rows and rows of computer chips, sometimes seven-feet high, data centres have turned into more than infrastructure for the internet. They are now the physical embodiment of the recent and explosive growth of arti¿cial intelligence (AI) technology, and the varied fears people associate with it.
A new Amazon data centre being built in Indiana will have a 26-building structure that will take up more than a square mile in the neighbourhood and maintain 782 diesel-powered generators.
In Ohio, a joint eႇort between OpenAI, Nvidia, SB Energy and the US Department of Energy is set to build a data centre complex that will stretch for roughly six square miles, the same size as most townships in the US. There are about 3,000 data centres currently operating in the US, with that number potentially doubling in the next few years, according to a report by Pew Research Center.
Data centres are built through very local rules and permits, meaning federal lawmakers like US senators have little say in the process. Yet, opposition has become so strong so quickly in the US that suddenly, politicians at all levels are now all but required to take a stand.
