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Data Centers Causing Huge Temperature Spikes for Miles Around Them, Study Suggests
The data centers at the heart of the AI boom are producing so much heat that they’re spiking land temperatures for miles around them by up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit, new research suggests. The effect is so pronounced that the researchers say they’re creating entire “heat islands:" [futurism.com]
The data centers at the heart of the AI boom [futurism.com] are producing so much heat that they’re spiking land temperatures for miles around them by up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit, new research suggests. The effect is so pronounced that the researchers say they’re creating entire “heat islands.”
The findings, detailed in a study [arxiv.org] that’s yet-to-be-peer-reviewed, add to an already grim picture of the environmental impact [futurism.com] of these sprawling facilities, the largest of which consume enough energy to power entire cities [fortune.com]. Their commensurate greenhouse gas emissions, however, apparently aren’t the only way data centers are heating up the world around them.
The researchers focused on roughly 8,400 so-called “hyperscalers,” the term used to describe data centers of incredible size that offer cloud computing and AI services. Their construction has surged in the past decade, and the AI boom has pushed their demand and scope to new heights; Meta’s new “Hyperion” data center, for example, cost $27 billion to build and has an expected computing capacity of five gigawatts, an appetite that takes ten gas-powered plants to sate [fortune.com].
[...] The effects were local, but far reaching. The researchers found that the temperature increases were felt up to 6.2 miles away — though they dropped off with distance — in all affecting more than 340 million people. CNN‘s coverage [cnn.com] notes that the trend held globally: Mexico’s burgeoning data center hub in Bajio saw an uptick of around 3.6 degrees over the past 20 years, as did Aragon, Spain, itself a hot new hub for hyperscalers.
Link to Study: The data heat island effect: quantifying the impact of AI data centers in a warming world [doi.org]
