436
‘Irresponsible’: backlash as Utah approves datacenter twice the size of Manhattan
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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Wym not all AI data centers?
I mean they're not all for AI and they're not all environmentally devastating.
This one very much is.
Which aren't environmentally devastating?
There are quite a few. The best ones are sustainable closed loop datacenters with on-site solar which is becoming pretty common across the world, especially for new builds. Often producing more power than they need and feeding it back to the grid (especially if the local government has an energy buy back scheme).
But most data centers are pretty tiny and just built into an office building with a bunch of server racks.
Depending on where you live, a quick web search for data centers in your local area will probably show up dozens of them of varying quality hosting people's websites and business apps etc. They aren't any scarier than anything else you find in a city. They're critical infrastructure that helps make the internet a thing. In most cases, if it wasn't a datacenter, it would be a car yard or a factory, etc.
But! There are also truly evil datacenters. Like this insane Utah monstrosity built for a shitty purpose and the size of a freaking city. An obscene monument to the US tech cesspool's hubris.