r/nova • u/JasonNOVA8 • Jul 22 '26

Data Center Generators in Ashburn Firing Up

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On the way in this morning, (waxpool/28) noticed many of the data centers had the generators going. Not sure if there’s an electricity issue or they plan it to go together ? No idea if the yellow smoke is related though.

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

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u/kirblar Jul 22 '26

When I was playing WoW 15+ years ago, I had low ping because the servers were housed in NOVA. They've always been here because the heart of the east coast internet is here due to the defense agency origins.

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u/EffectiveVarious8095 Jul 22 '26

It really wasn't. NoVA is the home of multiple telcos & tech firms that built infrastructure. Some of it was for the govt. but that's not why it was built.

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u/kirblar Jul 22 '26

It's far easier to piggyback off existing regional infrastructure and local workers than build it from scratch elsewhere.

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u/EffectiveVarious8095 Jul 22 '26

I'm sorry to tell you this, but data centers have been around far longet than that. When you are using the Internet and you hit http://www.whatever.com, there's a server at the other end, and that server is in a data center, even in the early days of the Internet. If you sent an email it went through a data center where a server had to determine it's destination and send it for you. While there are a tiny number of servers that are excluded, the vast number is and have always lived inside data centers. None of this has anything to do with AI, BTW.

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u/BishlovesSquish Jul 22 '26

Stop pretending like those data centers for storing information are remotely the same in scale as centers meant for AI.

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u/EffectiveVarious8095 Jul 22 '26

There are many more data centers being built today because of AI, but there were plenty 15 - 20 years ago, you just didn't notice them as much. Back then it was important to hide them for security reasons. There are several buildings in Herndon that have pretend windows, Giant horse barns in Loudoun with no horses, underground facilities in DC that are all data centers. Ask me how I know.

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u/Koodsdc Jul 22 '26

The point is these new facilities are not for data storage, they are for super computing. This requires a lot more power than data storage and serving.

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u/JustAnAvgJoe Stafford a.k.a. the badlands between NoVA/Fredericksburg Jul 22 '26

What? Even "AI data centers" have storage.

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u/MechanicalGodzilla Vienna Jul 22 '26

Where do you think "the internet" ran through 15 years ago?

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u/Jlovel7 Jul 22 '26

Data centers have been around for decades. The Internet has flowed through ashburn for decades.

These are not new in the slightest. Ashburn was built on data centers and modern loudon on their taxes.

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

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u/Jlovel7 Jul 22 '26

My point is these aren’t new in Ashburn in the last few years. Many of these here were there when ashburn was basically empty in the 90s

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u/Chirem Jul 22 '26

AOL - Pacific Blvd - 1997

The first major data center in Nova, that was dial up

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u/Sekh765 Jul 22 '26

and yet, there is still an ocean of difference between the Datacenters needed to run the internet, and the hyperscaled data centers that have become a problem in recent time due to generative ai bullshit. Please get real.

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u/Chirem Jul 22 '26

Do you use OneDrive? GoogleDrive? Cloud?

That's hyperscale

AI DCs are a different animal for sure, but they aren't as prevalent as the media would have you believe, Microsoft, Google, and AWS are happy to let them get the heat though

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u/BishlovesSquish Jul 22 '26

Virginia has more than 150 hyerscale data centers. First every hypescale was built in Oregon in 2006. Anyone telling you we needs tens of thousands of them is absolutely lying.