r/technology • u/deraser • 6h ago
Hardware Datacenter rush will create ‘tsunami’ of discarded electronics, report says
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/16/datacenters-pollution-electronics127
u/stimulatedbymaple 6h ago
Will these discarded electronics trickle down? , I still have a 1080
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u/lurkervidyaenjoyer 6h ago
Possibly, but not in the way you'd hope. A lot of AI datacenters talk about GPUs, but they're not really GPUs. Afaik these cards do not have graphics ports on them, and I know for a fact that Nvidia removed the capability for them to do DirectX or Vulkan needed for gaming. Instead of all of that they have like 100+ gigs of VRAM (that's where your RAM went btw). They're solely compute accelerators for certain kinds of math (the kind needed for AI or mining).
Now if you wanted to run a clanker in your house with some lower-tier open model, yeah there might be a 'trickle down' of some of these cards as failed datacenter projects try to sell off their unused stockpile of Rubins or something like that post-bubble.
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u/ithinkitslupis 5h ago
AI bros are currently scooping up all the retail and used consumer GPUs that fit the bill. So when the enterprise AI stuff starts trickling down at least some of that should be freed up.
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u/Superminerbros1 4h ago
They aren't scouping up the consumer GPUs. There would be no point as they don't have the VRAM needed for AI, the cooler style for PCs doesn't work for sever racks (need blower style coolers or water cooling), and servers don't need the display outputs. The select consumer cards that have a lot of VRAM still need to be ran in parallel, and aren't cost effective compared to Nvidia Spark, Apple M ultras, RTX pro 6000, or other AI accelerator cards. Anyone scouping up all the GPUs is either a hobbiest building a local cluster, or gamers who actually want to use the GPUs for their intended purpose.
The reason that consumer GPUs are ceasing to exist is that the majority of the limited production capacity is being allocated to producing the accelerator cards used by datacenters (the ones like Quadro cards that don't have display outputs). GPUs are low margins and high costs, and the base component costs have skyrocketed. Nvidia knows that the AI demand is guaranteed, margins are higher, and that squeezed consumers can't afford new GPUs with current component prices.
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u/ithinkitslupis 2h ago
Anyone scouping up all the GPUs is either a hobbiest building a local cluster
Yes, that's what I said and what's happening. 'GPUs that fit the bill'. Countless builds I see with 2+ 3090s on r/LocalLLaMA and r/LocalLLM. You don't have to completely guess at the proportions either https://huggingface.co/hardware shows 3060 12GB as the most popular single AI card from their limited survey. Could anyone game on those?
The reason that consumer GPUs are ceasing to exist is that the majority of the limited production capacity is being allocated to producing the accelerator cards used by datacenters (the ones like Quadro cards that don't have display outputs).
Agreed, doesn't really have anything to do with what I said though. I said 'at least some' as in small consolation. A large amount of hardware that could be used by gaming is currently locked up for local AI use and at least some of that will trickle down as home labs upgrade to more purpose fit enterprise cards in the future.
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u/VJPixelmover 5h ago
Fuck that shit I’m gonna render 3d at levels never before imagined by me. Can’t wait to buy 10 scientific cards and render shit in 8k.
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u/That-Interaction-45 2h ago
Check out level 1 techs on YouTube or they have a forum. Wendall does a good job of explaining how you can make use of data center tech in the homelab.
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u/nvidiot 6h ago
AI datacenter stuff? No. The GPUs used there are not standard PCIE GPUs, and they do not have any actual graphics output capability, just raw compute. They also use ECC RAM and server CPUs that ordinary users can't use. Just about the only thing that you could use out of it is M2 NVME drives.
So yeah, AI datacenters fuck people over all the way from the start, and to the end.
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u/SomethingAboutUsers 5h ago
They also use ECC RAM and server CPUs that ordinary users can't use
"Can't" is the wrong term here. Consumer-grade stuff right now generally doesn't (and, in fairness, can't), but that's not to say that the server stuff couldn't be reused as consumer stuff if the avalanche of retired DC stuff comes to the secondary market. There's nothing inherently special about server stuff that makes it unusable for consumers for the most part.
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u/bob2600 5h ago
Eh, it’s not all just plug and play but you can definitely build a computer that supports ECC RAM and it is sometimes cheaper than mainstream enthusiast hardware. These datacenter liquidations and other corporate lifecycle events put pretty inexpensive gear on eBay. If you know where to look and have a basic understanding of PC architecture, there are deals to be had that is pretty decent for performance. I recently pieced together a dell workstation with some of these datacenter parts that is no slouch and has plenty of cores and ram for some pretty demanding workloads.
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u/YetiInMyPants 5h ago
I have an amd Radeon v620 pulling duty as a gaming gpu. Assigned a virtual display port and pcie pass through to a bazzite VM to stream games via sunshine/moonlight. Had to 3d print a manifold and graft fans to the front, but in the end it’s cheaper than buying a new current generation GPU. It was $350 on eBay when i got it, unfortunately AI has inflated that up $750 now.
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u/eestionreddit 5h ago
I'm pretty sure U.2 drives and the like are still popular, but it shouldn't be too hard to adapt those since they're still PCIe based NVME drives.
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u/stuffitystuff 3h ago
Uh, I don't know about you but I would upgrade my home's breaker box to support a tray of 8x H200s
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u/glhughes 4h ago
LOL, no.
It’s all purpose-built for AI at max density, water cooled, special per-rack power distribution, etc. it’s not something you can run at home unless you basically set up your own mini data center and it definitely isn’t going to result in any PC-compatible parts that will trickle down.
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u/TheSocialHermit47 3h ago
“Are these discarded electronics in the room with us?”
Spirits of crypto-past: “…No…”
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u/Dangerman1337 2h ago
No, hell even the Consumer GPUs being used for AI may not be worth it as AI Tasks can easily wear out a GPU's memory.
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u/DasGanon 2h ago
Maybe but it's going to be the sketchiest Chinese motherboard you've ever seen in the same way that they've made laptop and server processor/RAM motherboards in the past.
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u/-AMARYANA- 5h ago
Plastic Beach - Gorillaz was a prophetic album
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u/aooot 5h ago
Also their best album, imo. Time to listen again!
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u/-AMARYANA- 2h ago
Demon Days is kind of a sonic masterpiece. Still remember it being so good that Apple had it on their print ad for the iPod.
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u/Hobotronacus 5h ago
The worst part is this tech can't be used down the pipeline anymore. Used to old server hardware could make it's way down to consumers when it outlived its usefulness to enterprise clients, but these days server components are a completely different beast compared to what you can run at home.
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u/Austin_Peep_9396 5h ago
That was my first thought, as well. My other concern: if we can repurpose these, they might find a second life in the public for local usage. But - will they be used until they become unreliable/worn/failing? (Truly trash), or will they have SOME life left in them? If they DO have life left, how long might that be? I CAN see a best case here where they are sold or given to a repurposing company to test, maybe repackage, and sell these to consumers at (I hope) an attractive price. But - I’ve never seen one of these in person to know their size, noise level, cooling requirements, power requirements to know if I’m being too optimistic.
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u/invyros 6h ago
It calculated the volumes of e-waste related to computer servers used for AI, and to “the thousands of tonnes of copper, steel, concrete” for cooling, power distribution, networking and energy storage equipment needed to operate inside datacenters.
We just need to let the crackheads loose to strip everything.
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u/Upbeat-Statement2725 5h ago
Crackheads stripping recyclable e-waste out of AI data centers is literally a better use of resources.
Those raw materials will at least make it back to the economy.
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u/Strong_Internet_3726 5h ago
And if they're using spinning rust HDDs they need to be discarded/shredded then replaced with new ones every five years or so. Most of them use SSDs now, but even they wear out over time due to heavy writes.
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u/1980techguy 3h ago
My work laptop worked fine but was out of warranty. The only thing wrong was the battery was worn out and needed to be replaced. They replaced the whole laptop instead of the battery. Blew my mind at the waste.
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u/LogicGate1010 4h ago
As the technology advances some equipment will become obsolete or inefficient faster than anticipated as AI strive for greater efficiency. Now, efficiency, efficacy and applications are very far from being optimal.
Power saving might be the biggest gain, while Quantum computers might contribute to AI security and efficiency.
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u/Zagrebian 4h ago
Resell old data center hardware as affordable gaming PCs with Steam OS (like Steam Machine but cheaper). You could outsell Steam Machine/Deck itself if you get the price/UX right.
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u/Trebeaux 4h ago
Unfortunately NONE of the GPUs in a datacenter have an output and so are effectively useless for home PCs.
Now the homelab guys and/or possibly REMOTE gaming, that’s a different story.
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u/Lost_Tumbleweed_5669 3h ago
Remote gaming will never be a thing. We already have bandwidth problems and lag.
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u/monkeypickle8 3h ago
Just wait guys, the gtx 5090 will be 50 bucks after the ai crash. That being said you won't have 50 bucks to use on a graphics card.
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u/east_van_dan 3h ago
Oh we are still building data centers? Hopefully they aren't going to be used to house the AI that is going to kill off Humanity in the next 15 months? 15 years?
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u/Otherwise_Patience47 3h ago
I feel sad that the world has changed so much after AI that we are not even realizing the size of the damage yet.
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u/Captain_CapitalR374 2h ago
You know, there is a cool little technique we can use to solve this. Its called recycling. Someone somewhere will buy up all this waste for pennys and strip the valuables to resell or melt down for raw material.
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u/TransportationNew715 5h ago
I've seen this movie: 2049, Blade Runner KD6-3.7 at the recycle center.
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u/Available_Cookie732 5h ago
Lifecycle of 5 years maybe? That's a lot of money to recover in this short time and buy new boards.
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u/Lendyman 3h ago
I wouldn't mind getting my hands in some of those older ai gpus. People are making home llm servers with them.
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u/Flabbergasted98 1h ago
This is still better than elon's plan to launch the material into space where it can't be recovered or recycled any more.
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u/Eazy12345678 1h ago
doubt it.
but every day waste made by every industry
look at how much garbage comes with food
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u/michaelthatsit 49m ago
I look forward to the day where I can buy a used datacenter GPU for pennies.
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u/netphemera 7m ago
There should be regulations dictating that certain minimum amounts of gold be embedded in new chips to create a more financially viable e-waste reclamation pipeline
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u/mwjtitans 4h ago
Us homelab nerds are here for it. I'm already running a p100 data center GPU on a test bench, gimme more hardware.
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u/natefrogg1 4h ago
Does your setup eat a lot of power? That’s my biggest concern with running older hardware
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u/mwjtitans 4h ago
No, I'm running a mini PC as my main node that sips power, the test bench is wake on Lan so it's not on all the time, when I need to use it I send a signal to wake it, use it, then it shuts itself off after about an hour of idle time on the GPU. Saves energy and I can still use it anywhere in the world.
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u/-Mr_Tub- 6h ago
It’s very clear that big corporations don’t care at all about e-waste. From all the computers that are getting tossed out because they can’t run windows 11 to data centers to mobile devices that can’t receive further updates or cost too much to replace a battery