data centers
FilterEveryone, all time103 from 37 people
- PK
Paul Krugman quoted
Trade economist, Nobel laureate in 2008 for his work…
Our readingMassive spending on data centers is crowding out investment in other parts of the economy.
Their wordsMassive spending on data centers is crowding out investment in everything else in the economy.
- 1 day earlier
- NS
Noah Smith quoted
Economics writer; author of the Noahpinion newsletter
Our readingThe data center buildout is providing a significant positive impact on construction employment.
Their wordsIn fact, although estimates of the effect of the data center buildout on construction employment produce very different numbers, they all agree that it’s a significant positive impact.
- 10 days earlier
- MS
M.G. Siegler quoted
Technology writer of Spyglass
Their wordsGoogle is launching their first data centers in space test which sounds promising (on paper and in labs), but also like none of this will be viable at any sort of scale for a decade at least.
- 1 day earlier
- GO
Gergely Orosz quoted
Writes The Pragmatic Engineer
Their wordsAI data centers used to have a ratio of 1 CPU to 8 GPUs. Now the ratio is more 1:4, and it could shrink to 1:1.
↗The Pulse: a new trend of CPU shortagesblog.pragmaticengineer.com
- EM
Elon Musk quoted
Founded SpaceX in 2002
Their wordsThe amount of compute in space will obviously round up to 100% of all compute
- 3 days earlier
- DR
David Roberts quoted
Writes and podcasts Volts, on the technology
Their wordsif we're not careful, the incredible public fury toward data centers threatens to metastasize into a more generalized hostility toward electrification.
↗Volts community thread #30: what should I ask the Danes?volts.wtf 1st of 2 in this piece
- BD
Brad DeLong quoted
Economics professor at the University of California
Their wordsThis week brought me news increasing my confidence with respect to one thing it is not: it is unlikely to be a hyperprofits engine for research labs with companies attached making money serving up calculations made in datacenters by simulated neural networks.
- BD
Brad DeLong quoted
Their wordsWhat bottom-up detailed understandings of the technology and its deployment do the guys with the spreadsheets working for the sell-side actually have here?
↗HyperScaler Operating Cash Flow “Consensus” Forecast: CHART OF THE DAYbraddelong.substack.com
- 2 days earlier
- TG
Tanner Greer quoted
Essayist, journalist and independent researcher on Chinese…
Their wordsSurvey data and on-the-ground reporting suggest that opposition to supercompute hinges on local issues.
↗The Cure for Cancer Is Not a Pure Math Benchmarkscholars-stage.org 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 3 days earlier
- BD
Brad DeLong quoted
Their wordsAnd when market opinion is nervous, it might turn and collapse the boom at any moment.
↗DataCenter Risk Is the Real Thing: CHART OF THE DAYbraddelong.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- BM
Bill McKibben quoted
Writer and climate campaigner
Their wordsone way to understand a data center is that it's a device for burning natural gas, the latest excuse (after Ukraine and Iran) for the fuel that Big Oil is counting on to keep its business model afloat even as the world turns away from internal combustion cars and crude demand begins to drop.
↗The Two Horsemen, Riding in Formationbillmckibben.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
- BM
Bill McKibben quoted
Their wordsit was a chance to stand up to the oligarchs and this technology they've staked their future on.
↗The Two Horsemen, Riding in Formationbillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- EM
Elon Musk quoted
Their wordsAI data centers resulting in lower electricity prices for consumers
- 5 days earlier
- EA
Emily Atkin quoted
Climate journalist; founded HEATED in 2019 after reporting…
Their wordsdata centers are nowhere near the biggest climate problem with artificial intelligence.
↗We asked Big Tech about AI’s fossil fuel problem. The responses were atrocious.heated.world 1st of 3 in this piece
- 8 days earlier
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Co-founder of Y Combinator and Viaweb
Their wordsIn a few years, Stoke's reusable launch vehicles are going to be shipping Starcloud's data centers into orbit.
- GR
Guillermo Rauch quoted
CEO of Vercel; creator of Next.js and Socket.IO
Our readingThe future of computing is one global, unified compute platform whose only limit is known physics.
Their wordsThe future is one global and unified compute platform, with only known physics as the limiting factor
- 3 days earlier
- EM
Elon Musk quoted
Their wordsConsensus estimate is that ~15GW of AI compute produced in 2027 cannot be turned on in 2027. This is harder than just finding power, as you also need to build out all the transformers, wiring, liquid-cooling, (massive) chillers & complex networking.
- 4 days earlier
- AM
Andy Masley quoted
Writer on AI and the environment
Our readingThe data-centre backlash is about the buildings themselves, not about what people think of AI.
Their wordsAll this combined with the survey data on Americans’ stated reasons for opposing data centers makes me think that attitudes toward AI are probably a meaningful factor for a minority of people opposed to data centers, but I don’t think the backlash overall is driven by people’s thoughts on AI.
↗I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centersblog.andymasley.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- AM
Andy Masley quoted
Their wordsI have a long separate post here looking at the evidence we have, and I come away thinking the data center backlash is basically entirely homegrown.
↗I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centersblog.andymasley.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
- SH
Scott Hanselman quoted
Programmer, teacher and speaker
Their wordsSMB Multichannel can make an old NAS with several gigabit interfaces much more capable than one might assume from looking at any single Ethernet port.
↗Migrating a Synology NAS to a UniFi UNAS Pro 8 with Robocopy, SMB Multichannel, and Surprising Performance Trapsfeeds.hanselman.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Their wordsPreventing companies from building data centers in America wouldn't slow down the rate of progress in AI. It would merely slow down the rate of progress in AI in America.
- 1 day earlier
- BM
Bill McKibben quoted
Their wordsIt's clear by now that this is all part of the extension of oligarchic control over our lives.
↗A year in, the data center/AI battle starts to clarifybillmckibben.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
- BM
Bill McKibben quoted
Our readingAI and the data-center buildout underlying it pose real and significant dangers to society.
Their wordsIts's clear by now that AI, and the data center development underlying it, pose real and significant dangers.
↗A year in, the data center/AI battle starts to clarifybillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 9 days earlier
- EA
Emily Atkin quoted
Their wordsthey found that Big Oil's use of AI to produce more oil and gas could create 3.3 to 13.3 times more climate pollution than powering AI's data centers.
↗AI’s climate problem is worse than we thoughtheated.world 1st of 3 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- DT
Derek Thompson quoted
Writer and podcaster; co-author of Abundance with Ezra…
Their wordsThis is the biggest and fastest-growing infrastructure project of our lifetimes.
↗The Great American AI Rebellionderekthompson.org 1st of 2 in this piece
- DT
Derek Thompson quoted
Their wordsThe fastest-growing political movement in America is dead-set on stopping the construction of data centers, which are critical to the growth of the fastest-growing industry in America.
↗The Great American AI Rebellionderekthompson.org 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- TP
Thomas Ptacek quoted
Security engineer; founder of Matasano Security and Latacora
Their wordsIt seems pretty clear that the only thing data center opposition is doing is pushing data center construction to the (many) places in America that won't regulate energy or pollution. Weird thing to pat oneself on the back for.
- 1 day earlier
- JS
Jasmine Sun quoted
Writer and former Substack product manager
Our readingOpposition to data center buildouts is fundamentally driven by public anger about money in politics.
Their wordsHis Lansing rally with Bernie and AOC, more than anything else, crystallized the connection between data center opposition and voters' anger about money in politics.
- 7 weeks earlier
- LT
Lip-Bu Tan quoted
Chief executive of Intel since 2025
Their wordsYou know, right now there's a massive build-up in term of the AI, you know, the I think it's the right thing to do. I don't see that in anything to slow it down uh because the workload is increasing a lot.
↗Re-engineering the Semiconductor Supply Chain with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tanyoutube.com 15th of 16 in this recording
- 3 weeks earlier
- SS
Salvatore Sanfilippo quoted
Programmer; wrote Redis and hping, and blogs about C
Their wordsThere is almost zero hope that NVIDIA setups will get less expensive, and even a small company can't afford to easily purchase and handle a small data center for local inference.
↗Distributing LLM inference in DwarfStarantirez.com 1st of 2 in this piece