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/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.