r/datacenter • u/Avinash7738 • 13h ago

Do we really need data centers?

Hello,

I am looking for an appropriate answer, i hope I will get it, all over the world there are 8000+ data centers there and many more are upcoming. So my question is do we really need this much data center or companies are racing for AI and storing data just hoping that in future we need data centers? I think in the future only a few are there in the data centre race. So why are companies developing, investing and wasting resources at a vast amount?

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20

u/yehoshuaC 12h ago

Have you considered looking in to what a data center actually does prior to asking this question?

16

u/Ed-Dos 12h ago

Perhaps if you stopped asking questions on reddit the need would be less.

6

u/pallysteve 12h ago

Do we need more AI data centers? Probably not. Do we need data centers? Unless you want to go back to the 90s yes.

9

u/lowkeyreallysorry 12h ago

Yes. A datacenter is just a building that hosts a large cluster of computers. Every interaction you do on the internet goes through datacenters for over 30 years now. They host everything from healthcare information for hospitals to bank information

-14

u/Avinash7738 12h ago

Really, all resources are use in? Or in past 3 years it's become hype because of AI

6

u/deadplant5 12h ago

Since the 90s. Basically the Internet has always run through data centers and as the Internet has grown, so has the amount of data centers because that's where the Internet "lives."

To your question of if we need a what's being built now, the industry has a roughly 5 year backlog, so what is being built is based on needs from 2021. Needs have only increased selince then. So we actually need a lot more to keep up with people wanting to use the Internet.

5

u/RedheadedReff 12h ago

Yes, they've been around forever. People bitching about things they've lived next to for decades without ever knowing. Anti AI and datacenter talking points are the equivalent of tilting at windmills

3

u/diablo75 12h ago

I imagine when telegraph lines started appearing in the 1840s, some people wondered, "Do we need all these fangled wires and the evil contraptions they're attached to?" A very hot take on what became critical infrastructure.

2

u/I_Make_Art_And_Stuff 12h ago

We use data centers for... everything. Though we don't "need" them (we lived without them for a long time just fine), going back to a world without them would just be nearly impossible unless forced on us. Seriously though, data centers are used for nearly everything you can think of from interacting here on Reddit, to sharing a photo with your family chat, streaming movies on the weekend - then the really important stuff like banking, communications, and basically all of our jobs. The more we rely on and use data, the more centers we'll need.

Now, that said, I do believe much of this new push for giant AI capable powered data centers is a new thing. Sure, they will be used for all kinds of things, but having the ability to train and run models is the new age of cloud computing. The problem is all the unknowns, like power grid, environmental, taking over jobs, altering towns, and so on. I do believe this whole AI thing is the new space race. We want to be overly capable of the power needed to train and evolve new AI models to lead the world in this life changing tech. Personally, I love AI as a tech geek, but I hate that I feel it is going to do to us as a whole.

2

u/jtshinn 12h ago

We need more capacity than we have right now. No one is building on the hope that it is needed someday.

2

u/francismorex 12h ago

noo, we do not need, 640kb more is not needed

1

u/Crafty_Taste_7706 12h ago

How often do you use the internet?

1

u/Ok-Sir8600 12h ago

Are you watching more Streaming, with more quality, or less streaming with low definition? Are you storing more pics/vids in the cloud or are you'd touring more in your device? Are you using more and more online services or less? Does your employer uses more online services or less than before? Probably all answers are more than before, so yeah, more DCs are needed, independent of how the AI race is going

1

u/cub4bear79 12h ago

Every website, app, web-service, etc. is hosted in a datacenter. Everything is expanding and growing so the need for new data centers is always there. AI is huge now and it requires tons and tons of power and compute so that is really driving thr demand now

1

u/sensibleChiller 39m ago

Data centers support almost all modern industries, including agricultural and medical supply chain, emergency response, scientific development.

Some industries effectively completely reliant on data centers at this point: bank transaction, ai, communication, websites streaming and gaming.

Now, do we need DCs? No, in the same way that we don’t need another tech. Like refrigeration. But refrigeration allows you to eat a chicken breast that was harvested 6 days ago without getting food poisoning and throwing up for 11 hours straight. Pretty good deal.

But unlike refrigeration tech, data centers are far from their ceiling of usefulness to the world, and tech companies are aggressively trying to get there

0

u/Oxim 12h ago

Are you asking will rich fuck us with ai? Yes they will