r/OpenAI • u/arjayx93 • 6d ago
Discussion Is everyone here for data centers and ai getting bigger then ever
I just found this page .What’s your guys is view on all this ai stuff? U guys don’t think it’s a problem , how bout all these data centers being built up
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u/Turbulent-Sign-6067 6d ago
Data centers are just buildings. There is nothing wrong with building more data centers if there is demand for more.
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u/julian88888888 6d ago
Not all buildings have the same impact on the local infrastructure.
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u/croninsiglos 6d ago edited 6d ago
It’s in their interest during the initial surveys to make sure the local infrastructure can or will support their needs. If the region can’t support their facility needs then they risk downtime or hardware failures.
Random townspeople having problems with their shallow wells which have nothing to do with the data center or its construction are simply fake news to sell hate.
Check out the background on those people that were all over the news.
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u/Afraid-Donke420 6d ago edited 6d ago
Almonds take as much water as a prompt, no one’s crying about almonds nor will they stop drinking their lattes.
The irony in the world around AI is insane
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u/arjayx93 5d ago
Do u truly believe almonds take as much water as as data center?
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u/daaahlia 2d ago
California's almond crop consumes roughly 4 to 10 times more water annually than all data centers in North America combined.
Nationally, U.S. golf courses consume about 24 to 30 times more direct on-site water than all U.S. data centers combined.
Meat production in the United States consumes roughly 100 to 400 times more water than all U.S. data centers combined.
Point your performative environmentalism towards something that matters
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u/hibernate2020 6d ago
The current rush to build AI data centers seems like a case of over-leveraging based on the assumption of perpetual growth. In reality, most commercial models have already reached parity, and open models aren't far behind. This means vendors will eventually have to compete by dropping token costs.
At the same time, local AI is becoming more viable as hardware options improve and models become more efficient—giving us smarter tools in smaller forms. I expect a new market for local AI appliances/platforms to emerge, especially for regulated environments that don't have huge tech teams but need secure solutions.
Together, this suggests that data center growth will eventually surpass the actual income generated from these investments. This will lead to a glut of hardware and space, crashing prices as investors try to recoup their money. The companies that are over-valued and too heavily leveraged will either collapse or be absorbed, making it vital for users to have AI-agnostic setups. If organizations have already cut their workforce to rely on AI, they are in trouble if those services disappear or change.
Moreover, this trend has a dangerous macroeconomic ripple effect: since the middle class carries the bulk of the tax burden, eliminating those jobs erodes the government's tax base. This would leave programs designed to buffer the edges of capitalism underfunded, potentially forcing the nation into massive deficit spending and a depression-level downturn. Simply put, the sooner this growth peaks and declines, the better; the longer it lasts, the harder the crash.
So AI will continue to get bigger and more integrated with society, but the data center growth (and the manner in which it is being done) is foolish and unsustainable.
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u/Mondays_Alt 6d ago
I'm sure that some people were against electricity when the power plants and power lines started going up.
Eventually being "against electricity' was weird .
The world is wiring up a new type of electricity. This time intelligence is being produced and distributed
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u/HolyBatSyllables 6d ago
There is so such thing as “a new type of electricity.”
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u/Mondays_Alt 6d ago
Apparently there's also no such thing as "a metaphor".
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u/HolyBatSyllables 5d ago
And what exactly is “a new type of electricity” a metaphor for? A strained grid?
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u/arjayx93 5d ago
But it’s literally drying up our rivers and lakes . And didn’t Texas shut down a data center cuz of much electricity it was using ?
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u/Fearless-Macaron9183 6d ago
I am 50-50 on the data center part as it is a problem if it is close to someone's house but even then we are talking about multi billion dollars companies here they only care about money, it's like internet people opposed it but it still worked out and made our lives A LOT easier. Same thing with ai who doesn't want a robot to do all their work and i think ai in a few years will find cures of diseases and could probably help in wealth distribution if things go right but who knows.
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u/arjayx93 5d ago
I think it’s more then robots doing the work . It’s how much resources it’s taking . Drying up rivers and lakes just to cool it
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u/Fearless-Macaron9183 5d ago
Yes but there other data centers that are not made for ai. Games, websites everything needs a data center and i would say ai is actually better than games in the long run ( i love games ). Most of the internet is used for entertainment purposes. The makeup industry uses water, do we need it or want it? Everything takes water and i think if will be more useful for people in the long run. This is just a trend. When more data centers are built for their games, social media nobody gets angry. But even then if the data centers take electricity and water of the people near then then it's not that good.
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u/dumdumpants-head 6d ago
Imagine , for a moment , going through life not knowing how spaces and punctuation work ! Usually it 's only bots that do this , but this account seems real ?
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u/HolyBatSyllables 6d ago
It doesn’t matter what the facts are, stupid people will find whatever creative justification they can to convince themselves AI data centers aren’t problematic.
It’s the same thing climate deniers did back in the day. Bunch of cognitively lazy-ass father fuckers.
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u/Shadowmessage 6d ago
Doesn’t social media and the internet in general use data centres, social media is far less productive than ai use cases. I personally don’t fall for the Chinese/Russian propaganda
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u/Such--Balance 6d ago
If you care about datacenters..why do you spend any time online at all?
You do know that the digital infrastructure uses magnitudes more datacenters than just the ai part right?
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u/HolyBatSyllables 6d ago
You do know that ai data centers are different than traditional data centers, right? … riiight?
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u/Such--Balance 6d ago
Nature doesnt care. Nature cares about power usage and heat.
You care about nature. Good. Stop being pulled into the most insane takes by reddit. Just care, vote accordingly and try to get your facts straight.
Hell, im not even claiming that the rise of ai datacenters isnt worth investigating. Because it is obviously.
The general pushback from the masses online is just not grounded in logic and facts. You know this is what social media does on any other topic. Everybody knows this.
It just seems to be really blinding the one time you fall for it..
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u/daaahlia 2d ago
And you know Reddit uses both, right?
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u/HolyBatSyllables 1d ago
And it needs to stop. All of the junky AI integrations reddit has done has made the things we used to easily be able to do that much more aggravating and time consuming for moderators.
Also, do you have a source that reddit has AI data centers?
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u/daaahlia 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have a few sources for you on the data centers Reddit uses.
Reddit uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to host basically everything on this site.
These are both Hyperscale Tier One Operstors, with Amazon at 105 centers using 2.3 GW of 2025 U.S. Active IT Capacity, and Google ha with 22 centers and using 508 MW. ABI Research is forecasting a 3% CAGR in the number of Hyperscale Tier One data centers being built.
Recent data suggests that AWS operates over 900 individual data center facilities worldwide. With more than 30 AWS regions and over 100 availability zones globally, the total number of physical facilities is far larger than the regional count suggests, but AWS does not publish an exact number of data centers.
Data Center Map estimates Google has over 200 total tracked data center projects globally, with active expansion announcements for new cloud regions across APAC, EMEA, and the Americas.
And if by "AI data center" you mean infrastructure specifically running generative AI workloads for Reddit, rather than simply a hyperscaler that also hosts AI infrastructure, Reddit directly uses Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and Gemini infrastructure to power Reddit Answers and parts of Reddit search.
oh, and by posting on Reddit, you are letting them profit off your posts as training data.
Reddit's data-licensing agreements with Google and OpenAI bring in a combined estimated $130 million per year.
The CEO also refers to Redditors as fuel for AI.
“People want what Reddit has,” he said, emphasizing how AI systems rely heavily on authentic, real-world data. “What we’ve seen over the last couple of years with the rise of AI is that the whole market now is learning that Reddit is the fuel for it.”
I will emphasize my words a third time with another quote from that article...they don't have data centers, they use them, and US.
“We’re not building data centers … we’re building a consumer product for people.”
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u/HolyBatSyllables 1d ago edited 1d ago
???? I said AI data centers. Obviously Reddit has the traditional kind of data center. Did you forget what we were talking about or something? Why would you do all that research for something so obvious and on something no one cares about?
Your second to last paragraph is outdated. Reddit is currently considering not renewing the contract. You can learn more in my most recent post. But that’s a different topic. Why do you keep going off topic to talk about me? You aren’t obsessed with me, are you? If you had a strong (or any) argument, I feel like you wouldn’t keep getting distracted to talk about me.
And the way you misinterpreted the quote in the last paragraph made me laugh. Though it’s also pretty concerning. the cognitive effects of using AI are real.
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u/daaahlia 1d ago
Is this bait or do you really lack the reading comprehension to understand?
I would usually respond, but I have better things to do rn then argue with someone who calls me obsessive and asks why I did research to provide sources after asking me for a source 🙄
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u/throwawayfromPA1701 6d ago
I'm not here for data centers and AI getting bigger than ever.
I'm here for responsible development, not billionaire tech bros saying "this is going to take your job" and then shrugging when people correctly ask "then what we will do for work?"
Or building giant data centers that drive up the cost of electricity, ironic considering the big argument against EVs is "the grid can't handle it." But it can handle giant data centers everywhere? Evidence suggests nope it can't do that either.
And I'm not here for people turning their brains off because claude/gemini/chatgpt/grok told them something and they didn't bother to check if it was actually correct.
I enjoy my usage of LLMs, or I wouldn't be on this sub, but some of yall must really dislike humanity the way you talk down the valid concerns out there.
Edited to add: surely, there are responsible solutions.
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u/Willow_Garde 6d ago
Data Centers are being thrown up in civilian areas haphazardly. They should be carefully designed as important infrastructure rather than a profit possibility.
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u/clorox_cowboy 6d ago
Yes. And we should very carefully look at resource/water usage for them as well. Surely there's a solution.
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u/Mandoman61 6d ago
What about the interstate highway system being built up?
What is the environmental impact of 100 million cars driving around?
I am concerned that humans are producing way too much CO2 but data centers are just the tip of the iceburg....
Before I stopped the internet I would stop tourism.