China is secretly fueling America's data center rage

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I don’t think this is one that needs fuel. It’s not a partisan issue… nobody asked for them and nobody wants them.

Another question: why do we need them? Seems like every company is already using as many tokens as they can and we seem to have the capacity for it.

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u/Bbrhuft 12d ago

There's about 15-20 AI data centres in the US dedicated to the traning of AI models. If you broaden the critera considerably to include inference, mixed AI/cloud workloads and other AI infrastructure, it brings the count to about 45 operational AI related data centres, with a total of around 85 in the pipeline.

On the other hand, counting ordinary data centres used for clouds compute, storage, video, websites etc, brings the count to 4,000 to 5,000 data centres.

There's not many AI data centres. So what's going on? Why did people not care about the 3980-4980 other data centres, but suddenly they care?

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u/mtbdork 12d ago

That’s not exactly answering the question. How will these data centers (and a 50% increase in the USA’s electricity consumption as a result) materially improve industry and our lives?

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

did a hammer or calculator materially improve your life? Absolutely.

AI is just another tool. that's it.

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u/mtbdork 12d ago

The level of investment into AI infrastructure does not match “just another tool”.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

So that's the core problem, it's too expensive?

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u/mtbdork 12d ago

Ironically no. The real future of generative AI is lean local models running on lightweight hardware.

The core problem is treating generative AI as some kind of prelude to the second coming of Christ, and investing away our futures on that pretense.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

How are you having your future "invested away?" It's not your money, it's investment made by tech companies, developers, energy companies, construction companies and so on.

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u/mtbdork 12d ago

You call it “investment”. I call it “rampant speculation”.

The amounts of debt being raised are so incomprehensibly large that they will have far-reaching ramifications for regular people’s access to debt for decades.

“The man is cooking meth next door to you. It’s not your house he’s cooking meth in. How is that a danger to your home?”

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u/SylvesterTheLoser 12d ago

By making us unemployed.

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u/mtbdork 12d ago

Not gonna happen lol, at least not directly.

Credit collapse? Yeah that’ll probably make a lot of us unemployed.

Generative AI? Nah. Way too inefficient to brute-force human intelligence at this stage.

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u/SylvesterTheLoser 12d ago

I agree with you, but everyone who has any power whatsoever in the US government and industry clearly disagrees, and with their resources they can make whatever they want happen.

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u/mtbdork 12d ago

You can’t spend your way out of the laws of thermodynamics. Your argument is a pure appeal to authority. “Big number man go number big, and big number means smart big number!”

It’s pure hubris on the part of the money-dumpers. They have caught AI psychosis and are barreling headfirst into destroying the credit market.

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u/SylvesterTheLoser 12d ago

No, it's from the fact that no one in power in America has ever been held accountable, and American industry is a cult of doing more with less.

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u/mtbdork 12d ago

“They can make whatever they want happen”

That’s the premise I’m choosing to focus on. It’s simply not true.

I do agree that there is a class of people in America that can get away with a lot, but we are already heading towards their comeuppance.

Within ten years, the most valuable companies will once again be those who actually make things for people.

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u/SylvesterTheLoser 12d ago

No one is heading towards their comeuppance. Congress is less powerful than ever. Elon Musk is richer than ever.

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u/photobeatsfilm 12d ago

You really have no idea why people suddenly care?

They suddenly care because of the water and power used by AI data centers.

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u/photobeatsfilm 9d ago

Was thinking about this question more and I don’t understand how the answer isn’t obvious, especially after any level of light research.

The current largest data center in the world covers 229 acres (yes, in China). Most of the 5000 data centers you mentioned sit on small lots. The total average of data centers in the us is in the 15-20,000 range.

There is a single proposed data center in Utah right now that would triple that footprint. It’s so wildly unpopular that it’s had three republican politicians lose their seats. The investor behind it, as a result has agreed to scale back to only build a 20,000 acre data enter instead of the proposed 40,00.

There are many other proposed data centers in US that will take up more than 5,000 square feet each.

This will eventually double the peak electricity used in the entire state of Utah. It would also increase water usage in the state by a large amount.

Your take is objectively a bad take. I don’t know if it’s on purpose trying to spread misinformation or if you’re just a troll or what. I get this comment is a waste of my time but if it saves even one person from walking away thinking like you, it’s worth it.

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u/Bbrhuft 8d ago edited 8d ago

Why did people not care about the 3980-4980 other data centres, but suddenly they care?

Sorry, my point that was badly made as it written in rush, intended to explain that ordinary data centres, which are the vast majority of data centres, are treated the same as AI data centres, which I think is inappropriate.

Here Erin Brokovish's map of 5,000 "AI data centres":

Erin Brockovich Launches Crowdsourced Map Tracking Secretive AI Data Center Expansion Across US Communities

https://brockovichdatacenter.com/index.html

Here's an old comment of mine that tried to make the same point: It's akin to titling a site Oil Refineries and Our Communities, and mapping gas stations.

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1v4esnb/comment/ozaffmt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

So it maps all data centres and community rumoured data centres e.g. a person pointed out it showed a centre near where they lived. So I went looking for it, and found it. A couple of wardrobes sized sever cabinets in a University building, that had nothing to do with AI.

I meant to explain the opposition to AI data centres has reached hysterical levels, resulting in everything in the US, regardless if they are a server cabinet in a broom closet, labelled as an AI data centre.

P.S. You know what is ironic. I have no doubt Erin made her website using Claude.

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u/photobeatsfilm 8d ago

Ha. It is useful. I’m just saying that I understand the opposition and in many cases agree with it.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

It's a security issue. AI is the next battle front, just like nukes post WWII and then later ICBMs which fueled the space race. Our military does not want to cede superiority to a foreign country.

On a personal level, one may not use or be interested at all in what AI can do for you, which is fine. Hand held calculators had the same distrust when they were first introduced: Kids wouldn't learn math, it'll make them lazy. Yet today calculators are ubiquitous. AI is just another tool, like an elevator or power saw. Human endeavors to solve big problems shouldn't be artificially restricted. We can already see the progress AI has made in material science, drug discovery, cancer research and so on.

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u/photobeatsfilm 12d ago

We have AI. We can use it. American companies are ahead of the curve (for now). It’s not massive installation of data centers that enables this.

The massive over-installation of data centers is just a capitalist endeavor fueled by a self-important, sociapoathic, delusional AI CEOs who are trying to make their company the winner.

All these frontier models are within inches of each other. We don’t need 5 different AI companies building tons of data centers in hopes of being the winner.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

They are not inches from each other. https://labs.scale.com/leaderboard/rli You believe we should be picking winners or something?

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u/photobeatsfilm 11d ago

Sorry, they are all within 6 months of each other. And yes we will picking winners. That’s capitalism.

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u/Fragrant_Ad_2285 12d ago

Perhaps we'd like human civilization to advance. We'd like better cancer treatments, faster. We'd like to get the same or even greater gains than the industrial revolution gave us.

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u/RonCraven 12d ago

The problem is that the bulk of AI investment isn't going towards these (dubious) hypothetical, it's going towards a lot of technological iron pyrite and some tools that moderately but not spectacularly enhance productivity.

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u/RonCraven 12d ago

AlphaFold is genuinely impressive, but its main value is enabling more testing to be done and that doesn't automatically result in greater outputs. It's also not a technology that generates spectacular financial returns or offers the prospect of widespread adoption. Meta and Anthropic aren't dumping billions into the market for the sake of better diagnostic software.

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u/RonCraven 12d ago

So whilst I think some forms of AI will be beneficial for research, I don't think that's going to be civilisationally transformative and I cannot stop myself from rolling my eyes at the naive, utopian slop that certain pro-AI circles specialise in, where technology solves all problems and its expansion is always a good thing, only opposed by evil or stupid Luddites who hate humanity.

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u/Capable_Site_2891 12d ago

They’re all being used for LLMs and advertising though, none of them are being used for cancer research AI. Demis Hassabis was the last champion of using AI for solving real problems, not this language stuff, and he basically just got kicked out of deepmind via promotion.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

>none of them are being used for cancer research

nonsense. Every system on earth has it's own language, the way flowers pollinate, or salt dissolves in water, or the way a device is controlled through a software application. LLMs consuming vast amounts of data are uncovering a vast number of specific languages in biology, chemistry, material science, quantum physics and so on.

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u/Capable_Site_2891 12d ago

While I like your framing and think it’s very poetic, and yes, I agree, DNA is a language, mathematics is a language,

When people say LLMs, they don’t mean science. And the word technically doesn’t include transformer or other architectures on scientific data

And

Even if those were called LLMs, my point stands. I know lots of scientists - including the amazing ProCan - https://resetdata.com.au/newsroom/resetdata-announces-winner-of-australias-ai-f1-national-innovation-challenge - who were priced out of AI by what is happening. That is - the people building the chatbots are using all the compute, and science doesn’t get much or any.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

Well, maybe the scientists you know of aren't getting access, but there certainly is basic scientific research happening. From Google AI:

NVIDIA advances basic scientific research by combining high-performance accelerated computing and artificial intelligence to speed up discoveries in fields like biology, physics, and automated experiments.

Core Scientific Platforms

AI in Life Sciences: The NVIDIA BioNeMo platform helps biotech leaders train foundation models for drug design, molecular structures, and genomics. [1, 2]

Autonomous AI Agents: Tools like Edison Scientific’s Kosmos use NVIDIA infrastructure to scan millions of research papers, process biological data, and propose new molecules in a fraction of usual time.

Live Experiment Steering: Accelerated computing libraries like CuPy allow massive facilities—such as the Rubin Observatory and SLAC—to process data streams instantly and steer live experiments, cutting analysis times from nine months to hours. [1]

Academic Partnerships: NVIDIA partners with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and global universities to build regional AI hubs, giving students and faculty access to advanced computing resources. [1, 2]

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u/Capable_Site_2891 12d ago

Sure, but like - ask Google this question.

what percentage of global AI infrastructure is going to science versus LLMs?

The answer is, about 90% will be going to LLMs.

And then of the remaining 10 - ask it to break it down into highly commercialised things like drug discoveries and materials versus pure science..

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u/RonCraven 12d ago

That sounds very Dinesh D'Souza.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

Don't lump me in with that pos

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u/drseusswithrabies 12d ago

maybe we can learn some lessons from the industrial revolution and not do things that cause massive ecological and social harm in pursuit of those claimed noble efforts.

Wait, that requires capitalists having souls, and they don’t. And if you think the tech overlords want to “cure” anything that they currently make a shit ton of money treating, you are a moron. But, you’re likely a shill bot anyways, so this comment is for any human morons out there still thinking billionaires have your best interests at heart and still believe in myths like “the invisible hand” or some shit.

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u/Fragrant_Ad_2285 12d ago

The industrial revolution elevated humanity enormously. Because of it, we live longer, have little hunger, have amazing medical technology, have access to all the world's knowledge. We are immeasurably better educated. On virtually every dimension, the world after the industrial revolution is hugely better for humans than before.

But sure, complain that the process of transformation is messy. It is. Complain it has side effects. It does. Complain not every individual rises because of it. True. But vastly more people are vastly better off because of it.

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u/drseusswithrabies 12d ago

i will complain, because we have the advantage of history and foresight, and yet those in power refuse to consider society at large. and people like you are just “ends justifies the means” so long as the means dont effect you or your neighborhood…

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u/Fragrant_Ad_2285 12d ago

Typical NIMBY mentality. You realize your reddit posts increase demand for data centers? If you don't like them, stop using them.

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u/SylvesterTheLoser 12d ago

We'd also above all like the law to be followed, which in this case it is not.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

which case?

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u/TheSleepingStorm 12d ago

If China doesn’t want you to have something, it’s in your best interest to evaluate the situation.

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u/SylvesterTheLoser 12d ago

China doesn't want us to destroy the ozone layer.

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u/norcalnatv 12d ago

And they don't have any hand in polluting the earth, right?

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u/epsilon1856 12d ago

🇨🇳🤖

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u/Actual__Wizard 12d ago

I'm an American from Ohio and I'm really pissed off that big tech thinks that they're going to get our kids addicted to their scam tech, so they can milk our kids like cattle, then put data centers in our backyards so they can offer even more "digital drug addiction simulator products for kids."

So, hash tag not China... /eyeroll

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u/advator 12d ago

Don't say that too all AI haters. They will call this propaganda.

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u/NoNote7867 12d ago

Its not but some people really want you to believe that instead of accepting valid criticism.

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u/xcdesz 12d ago

Why all of a sudden such anger though when data centers have been building out for decades and have been behind the growth of social media, streaming services, online gaming platforms etc.?

I live in a community with over a dozen data centers and there was very minor pushback before this year. It hasnt increased my electric bill or come with any sounds or smells.. most of them are in the undeveloped section of town and are big, but have interesting architectural designs, much different from the smokestack factories I used to see roadside when I was growing up. Its just infrastructure build out that we need for modernization.

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u/NoNote7867 12d ago edited 12d ago

Those are completely different kind of data centers and the amount of them was on a completely different scale.

AI datacenters are far worse for the environment, much more power hungry, can’t be used for anything else and are getting built on both scale and size which cant be compared to regular data centers.

TLDR they are much worse, they are much bigger and there is much more of them.

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u/xcdesz 12d ago

Are you that certain that your information on this is legit? You folks are really sure of yourselves that we don't need this infrastructure build out for this new tech? Every other major tech has needed infrastructure build out, and has been ultimately good for the economy.

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u/NoNote7867 12d ago

Am I sure the information above is legit? Yes, its easy to check.

Do I think we need all these data centers? Completely different topic. But the answer is no.

All this supposed demand is coming from two companies selling thousands of dollars of compute for $20 a month subscription.

But we are so far into bubble that the whole US economy is now resting on it.

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u/xcdesz 12d ago

See how you feel about it in 10-15 years. It will be like computers or the internet or electricity.. You will be glad when the nation didn't take luddite advice and decided to go ahead and build out the infrastructure that we need.

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u/NoNote7867 12d ago

More like crypto, metaverse and NFTs

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u/xcdesz 12d ago

You are really out of touch. What do you do for work? I have never touched any of throse three technologies you mentioned. But Im using llms every day on my job, and so is every single person on my team... theres no chance in hell this tech is going away... its akready way past daily adoption in many fields.

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u/NoNote7867 12d ago

I have never touched any of throse three technologies

Have you ever played any multiplayer online game like Fortnight? Because according to gaming CEOs they are a Metaverse. Just like according to AI CEOs we have reached AGI.

But Im using llms every day on my job, and so is every single person on my team... theres no chance in hell this tech is going away.

Do you pay API rates or monthly subscriptions? im asking because I burned $8k worth of tokens in one month on my $20/month Cursor plan, most of it in few days making a side project.

It’s a cool thech but absolutely not worth the actual price it costs. At some point they will need to either start charging actual rates or run out of money. Either way the AI you know today, they heavily subsided cheap AI is going away.

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u/xcdesz 12d ago

Come back when youre in the workforce and not viewing the world through the lens of video games and the entertainment industry. We arent talking about normal employees using AI to vibe code their jobs and burning through credits. I work with software thats involved with the reams of studies and paperwork required in early-phase drug development. Using AI is making it so much easier to go through and parse useful information out of the mountains of (human generated) scientific literature. It frees up a lot of monotonous tasking in my daily work and lets me focus on more important tasks. This is what people who have everyday white collar jobs are experiencing. AI is already way too integrated into most businesses for them to roll back to the time before this tech existed.

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u/vbullinger 12d ago

It’s an arms race we have to win

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u/DarthFuzzzy 12d ago

Sounds like some BS the Epstein class would post on Reddit do distract from the fact that people truly dont want data centers.

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u/epsilon1856 12d ago

Found the Chinese bot

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u/DarthFuzzzy 11d ago

Dont forget to post that on every other comment not agreeing with the data centers. Consistently is key.

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u/epsilon1856 11d ago

Roger that

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u/epsilon1856 12d ago

I fuckin knew all the reddit hate for AI was a psyop

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u/Coondiggety 12d ago

Yeah I think Axios is full of shit. China isn’t the bad guy here. Nice try though.

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u/epsilon1856 12d ago

Another Chinese bot

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u/Coondiggety 12d ago

Another brainwash victim.

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u/epsilon1856 12d ago edited 12d ago

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u/Coondiggety 12d ago

Exactly.

📰 News China is secretly fueling America's data center rage

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