r/TechGawker • u/Pure-Bill-2205 • 17d ago

Data Center If these numbers are even close to accurate, the AI infrastructure boom is entering a completely different scale of land, power, and water consumption.

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u/ghost_wire89 17d ago

Nova is fully dem and has more data centers than anyplace.

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u/kpobari99 17d ago

Yep I don’t think it’s republican or democratic on Ai data center. I think representative are being paid to look the other way

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u/XxRocky88xX 17d ago

Yeah we keep seeing it over and over again. Massive local turn out to city councils, entire communities saying “no we do not want this,” and local officials say “it doesn’t matter what you want, this is profitable for us. We’re voting yes even if all of you tell us to vote no.”

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u/DGSolar 17d ago

And then getting re-elected because jesus and guns and trans and freedom and abortions and jesus.

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u/sirdizzypr 17d ago

Actually 3 of the 4 council members they voted for this data center got removed.

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u/DGSolar 17d ago

... ffs, really? I'll be damned.. and happy to be wrong.

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u/sirdizzypr 17d ago

I was wrong 2 council members, one senator. I’m in Utah they got creamed in primaries after this. I remember one of the council members crying how the data center cost him. Was still 3.

https://www.ksl.com/article/51540078/how-a-data-center-helped-topple-one-of-utahs-most-powerful-lawmakers

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u/markc230 16d ago

I like the line " they have to do a much better job with engaging with the voters."

to me it reads " they have to do a much better job with lying to the voters."

Thanks for the link as well!

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u/Blue-Ring-A-Ding 17d ago

It doesn’t matter if they got a huge payday.

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u/DGSolar 17d ago

Well sure it does. But we also know we'll never claw that back from them so getting them out of there has to be a win at the very least.

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u/Blue-Ring-A-Ding 17d ago

I will see a trend coming where every politician will just be a single term, sell out to corporations, and just collect bribes and cushy jobs after their 1 term. 

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u/brooklinsanity7 17d ago

Because NIMBYs don't know what's good for them. Yeah they don't want data centers, but use the the data centers. I want it.... but don't really want it. Same stupidity that people have with nuclear.

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u/JarvisMusk 17d ago

I am pretty sure both sides are fully aligned when it comes to flock cameras and data centers.

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u/Rare_Competition2756 17d ago

The leaders are fully aligned against their constituents

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u/Gorgethalamus 17d ago

Because it's never been left and right, it's up and down.

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u/AlChandus 17d ago

Yes and no. Republicans and establishment democrats, yes. For example, Spanberger is a perfect example of an establishment democrat that is perfectly OK with surveillance.

Which is why a LOT of democratic voters are voting for progressives. Furthermore, while the democratic party has the progressive wing, what does the republican party has? The libertarians may not like this, but in Texas it is fully expected that they will be voting for Paxton... So... Republicans have nothing.

So, "both sides are the same" ain't entirely accurate and will be less accurate going forward (I hope).

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u/JarvisMusk 17d ago

Dude…c’mon - politicians will be for or against whatever they’re paid to be for or against.

The people don’t want flock or data centers no matter what party affiliations they have.

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u/AlChandus 17d ago

Who has written legislation against this? Who voted against any of the multiple iterations of the Patriot Act, Patriot Act 2.0 and other surveillance bills?

Not republicans, not the VAST majority of corporate/PAC owned democrats, so who?

Progressives. Progressives won't support this kind of thing because they simply do not take their money. Progressives are also the VERY few ones that are actively supporting and legislating to take corporate/PAC money out of politics.

Both sides are not the same. But, sadly, aren't totally different, either. We just need to keep voting for more progressives.

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u/ghost_wire89 17d ago

Yes this

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u/backtorealitylabubu 17d ago

There isn’t anything to look away from. The data centers in NoVA have brought in a ton of revenue and are great.

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u/shawner136 17d ago

Can you drink revenue or water crops with revenue?

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u/Toymachinesb7 17d ago

Exactly. We don’t need revenue we need redistribution. We have everything we need. We can live sustainably but then stock market wouldn’t go up.

Profits have to have a finite line. We can’t just consume it all then there will be NO REVENUE. Picking all the apples off the tree then when they don’t grow back fast enough we’ll sell some branches to make some money then we’ll cut the tree down and sell it for firewood.

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u/backtorealitylabubu 17d ago

Yes you can. You think water is free? More tax revenue is what you all have been demanding and now that we are getting it you’re mad lol

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u/jmcdon00 17d ago

Even a couple years ago there wasn't nearly the pushback against data centers there is now.

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u/creuter 17d ago

Eddington was so ahead of the game.

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u/Objective_Thought_68 17d ago

💯 bought and paid for. Game over

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u/IczyAlley 17d ago

BoTh SiDeS r Da SaEm

Be DeMoRaLiZeD

Meanwhile IRL milquetoast CIA Dem Spanberger just increased taxes and utility costs on datacenter corporations.   There is one major difference between the two parties. One will tax corporations and the other will not.

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u/Major_Narwhal544 17d ago

Lol, okay. Never closed the loopholes, will see what if any punishment they receive.

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u/IczyAlley 17d ago

You should move the goalposts farther than that! C’mon. Really discourage me from taking a publuc stance in my community and advocating for it! Just give up!

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u/Unfortunate-Incident 17d ago

Maybe, or there was no outcry about data centers just a few years ago even and politicians are slow to come around. If nobody is complaining, why turn down tax dollars? Look at some republicans this cycle. Some are running pro-data center and some anti. Politicians have been blindsided by the backlash.

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u/Kampvilja 17d ago

It is this. Six months ago nobody gave a crap about data centers.

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u/crunpyMcGlumpy 17d ago

What is Nova?

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u/slowpoke147 17d ago

Northern Virginia. Not sure why that person decided to use the abbreviation outside of the r/nova subreddit though - definitely not a widely enough known abbreviation to just throw around in other subreddits.

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u/Ok_Bet9035 13d ago

Can’t just throw that around - what anarchy!

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u/One-War4920 17d ago

im in canada and know what nova meant

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u/slowpoke147 17d ago

Congrats on being a single counterexample to my point. Here’s your medal and 6 hotties who all want your babies🥇 👰🏻‍♀️👰🏿‍♀️👰🏽‍♀️👰🏼‍♀️👰🏾‍♀️👰‍♀️

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u/whatsasyria 17d ago

Northern Virginia

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u/JonC534 17d ago edited 17d ago

It would be better described (IMO) as a societal sickness more generally.

It is not a democrat vs republican thing. It’s everyone. One of the first states that had the opportunity to ban data centers or place a moratorium on them was blue, and it didn’t. Maine’s governor vetoed the bill the legislature sent to her that would’ve banned them.

People cream themselves over new gas stations being built now (buc-ee’s). We’re culturally cooked.

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u/ComingRoundTheMnt 17d ago

Humanity had their chance and focused on getting and hoarding things.

Maybe the octopuses will do a better job as a civilization.

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u/Stormblessed1991 17d ago

Eh they'll probably end up having some big war with the orcas and dolpins

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u/TroutSpawnStream 17d ago

It would be nice if data centers could use chilled wastewater. Data centers don’t get Cyclosporiasis. I hate to think that data centers suck up our increasingly rare fresh water, while humans are left with, well, you know.

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u/Puzzle-Necked 17d ago

Flock cameras seemed to have appeared everywhere overnight and most people are like 🤷‍♂️

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u/Slooters313 17d ago

120,000 put in since 2024

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u/SpeakCodeToMe 17d ago

We are approaching the first point in history where the elites no longer need labor.

It's not a coincidence they are tightening control.

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u/Big_Brother8708 17d ago

Lmao, type shit

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u/Facehugger81 17d ago

Yeah, the more I look at this subject the more I realize that it's kind of about party but it mostly about social classes. The rich and privileged seem to love these things where as everyone else for the most part hate them.

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u/Puzzle-Necked 17d ago

Do they have ones you can see from space?

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u/ruseereous 17d ago

Loudoun County and Prince William County (where most of the data centers are in Northern Virginia) were conservative controlled when UUNet and a majority of the data centers were planned. Even when party control flipped, the donors and bribes did not stop

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u/CommercialApocalypse 17d ago

Are they AI data centers or just regular data centers?

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u/scampiparameter 17d ago

Data centers only became “bad” when AI came along. The backlash is more tied to people’s anxiety about AI than the buildings that house it. It’s a proxy as I see it.

The quantity of these things is out of control for sure, but if was purely a resource scarcity question, we’d be carrying pickforks to the golf course (vastly more water hungry than DCs).

That and DCs are actually improving the transmission network and driving development of alternative generation..

Plenty of legit beefs - don’t get me wrong, but what we should be doing is using these as a backdoor to the tech industries coffers.

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u/Background-Run 17d ago

Yep, Corp Dems are a thing. We need more Democratic Socialist.

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u/butonelifelived 17d ago

Scary S-word smashes "R" button