LETTER: Railing against data centers

Data is becoming a commodity. The data needs of all aspects of society — even excluding AI — are increasing. Everything is transferring to online. I just went to a small local restaurant, and there was a QR code to pay the bill and it was tied to the credit card in my wallet app. Forget about saving your Super Bowl ticket stub for posterity. The tickets for every event, even a show at a local church, are now on your phone. That is not even the future — it is now.

If we limit data centers, data capacity will be in short supply. With everything that is in short supply, the price for it goes up. You can start with more expensive cellphone and internet services. But just like higher oil prices increase the costs throughout the supply line, the increased costs of a lack of data centers will be pervasive throughout the economy.

This is all reminiscent of the cellphone tower fights of 30 years ago and — as with cell towers — data centers will be built somewhere. The irony is now that people ask for more towers for better service. Water is no longer a real issue for data centers, as they are shifting to closed-loop systems. The electrical supply issue is still there, so every center needs to find a solution to it. Fear of AI is not a reason to fight data centers. AI will be willing to pay for priority at the data centers so fighting AI is a fight that will be lost.

Railing against any center anywhere is not the solution to the problem. No one can control where their data is stored. The cloud is actually somewhere here on Earth. We certainly don’t want them in China, where they can get access to our data. If we ban them, that is where they will wind up.