I think its likely possible to build a data center that a community would be okay with. It would mean making certain design choices:
Closed loop water cycle - This would mean that only small fraction of water that is normally used by DCs is consumed. This technology is fully mature. The reason most companies don’t use it is, it is more expensive to run the DC this way.
Large scale PV solar panel installation for the DC - While not a complete answer to power consumption question, it would provide a large offset during the hottest hours of the day when DC cooling is most needed mitigating the worst impacts to DC electricity consumption
Waste heat reuse - In many parts of the world heat centrally created in a city and distrusted through pipes to other places that need heat. DCs are exceedingly good and producing heat, and it is largely wasted. If a community would know that their own heating bills would come down by using waste head from the DC, that would be an incentive.
Sound mitigation - most of the sound comes from cooling fans. If waste heat reclamation is done properly or a water loop to a large body of water is available, then the noise could be significantly reduced or eliminated too.
All of these things are possible and if a DC builder did these things on an existing site, then used that as a showcase for what a new DC would be, I think it would be much better received. They can do all of these things. They don’t because its cheaper not to.
Just to add to your points, all of those are already a thing in colder climates. Google DC in Finland is one example. When it’s heavily below zero half of the year it’s just not possible to run open loop systems and there’s plenty of use for the excess heat. Some DCs just donate the waste heat to municipal heating. PR obviously plays role in that, but that’s easy way to get rid of the heat and datacenters don’t need to manage the heating network and fluctuations on demand, so they also benefit from someone who’ll just take the heat away from their ‘hands’. Also sound is automatically better managed since you need decent insulation on the buildings to avoid condensation and other problems which come when temperature differences are pretty huge between inside and outside of the building.
Heat exchangers and/or heat pumps to move energy to water and then pump that to district heating network which then takes care of heating of all kinds of buildings.
If it’s used for something that benefits society sure, but AI slop farms don’t do that. Also, if it’s reasonable sized and not determined to buy up way more resources than needed to destroy the consumer electronics economy.
I think its likely possible to build a data center that a community would be okay with. It would mean making certain design choices:
All of these things are possible and if a DC builder did these things on an existing site, then used that as a showcase for what a new DC would be, I think it would be much better received. They can do all of these things. They don’t because its cheaper not to.
Just to add to your points, all of those are already a thing in colder climates. Google DC in Finland is one example. When it’s heavily below zero half of the year it’s just not possible to run open loop systems and there’s plenty of use for the excess heat. Some DCs just donate the waste heat to municipal heating. PR obviously plays role in that, but that’s easy way to get rid of the heat and datacenters don’t need to manage the heating network and fluctuations on demand, so they also benefit from someone who’ll just take the heat away from their ‘hands’. Also sound is automatically better managed since you need decent insulation on the buildings to avoid condensation and other problems which come when temperature differences are pretty huge between inside and outside of the building.
How do you donate heat? Ventilation pipes?
Heat exchangers and/or heat pumps to move energy to water and then pump that to district heating network which then takes care of heating of all kinds of buildings.
But the profittsssssssssssss
If it’s used for something that benefits society sure, but AI slop farms don’t do that. Also, if it’s reasonable sized and not determined to buy up way more resources than needed to destroy the consumer electronics economy.
Also, do something useful instead of participating in AI slop, which is a harm to society from every direction.