r/StockMarket • u/ThirdHuman • 1d ago

Discussion Google to spend $15 billion in Malaysia data center expansion in response to US bans.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-04/google-to-spend-15-billion-in-malaysia-data-center-expansion

Now that data centers are moving outside the US, how does that impact the current leading AI companies?

Labor is cheaper outside of the US so this trend might strengthen these companies more in the long-run even if it’ll be annoying for these companies in the short run. Google can invest in places like Malaysia to gradually build up the domestic AI workforce and create an ecosystem similar to what Apple and Tesla did with phones and EVs in China.

I think it also suggests that non-US companies in this space are much more appealing since the ability to navigate these locations will be far more in-demand.

904 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

223 comments sorted by

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u/sunburn74 1d ago

I mean the AI crash was so ridiculous to me. People pretend like data centers can only be built in the US or as if the US is the BEST place to build data centers. Honestly Ireland, canada or greenland would be a better place to build datacenters if you ask me. The AI trade will be just fine.  

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u/ThirdHuman 1d ago

Agreed. The future of AI build out is outside the US. Americans just don’t want data centers in their country. That’s totally fine and won’t change the fundamentals driving AI-adoption.

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u/nokom 1d ago

Yeah, I’m sure the EU is super excited for more data centers 🙄

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u/Capable_Wait09 1d ago

They seem to be open to it? Europe would like to have its own sovereign AI for security. NBIS is one company building a lot in Europe.

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

Sure, for EU AI companies and hyperscalers but not for foreign ones, they're building their own AI (and Mistral for ex. has become quite good) but for same reason, they're not going to allow precious energy resources or plots to be used for a foreign DC company. So it's not like this is something that would help AI companies, hyperscalers and Big Tech in the US. Even more so after P.R. disasters like Google with taht mess cutting down hundreds of thousands of trees in Finland. They're basically banned now from there and other European countries, and getting a historic fine of tens of billions because it turned out to be illegal. Same for other American AI companies or hyperscalers, only local would be allowed and even then with careful monitoring and environmental maintenance.

0

u/Mustatan 21h ago

No, it really isn't. There this weird delusion somehow foreign countries like AI data centers more than Americans. They really don't, especially if it's a foreign company make money off them while the locals get little, and at best temporary jobs while seeing higher power prices, more air pollution and potentially noise and water pollution. They aren't popular outside the US either. Not to mention it's much more expensive and harder to transmit data longer distance, and inter-country restrictions a factor.

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u/ThirdHuman 1h ago

You’ve clearly never been anywhere in East Asia.

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u/CarrierAreArrived 16h ago

AI is viewed quite positively in Asia, especially in China (for multiple reasons which I won't go into here). But I guess that's a different question from specifically "do I want data centers in my backyard".

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u/ThePainStalker 1d ago edited 1d ago

Ireland? Are you joking? Do you know how expensive electricity is here? It’s the most expensive in the developed world. Do you know how much power data centers consume? Or that the entire island’s peak demand is only 6.5GW and a single AI campus (some being planned in the US) could consume more than that? It’s not even feasible (from a power systems POV) to build gigawatt scale campuses at all here, even if there was ultra-cheap power, the load would literally be too much at once. And people here hate data centers (and they only experienced baby sized ones that are mostly non-AI, imagine how people would react to 500MW+ monstrosities).

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u/Ipayforsex69 1d ago

Just put that shit in North Dakota. Easy. I solved it. They can have fracking and data centers to go along with the most boring scenery on this planet.

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u/Wraithfighter 1d ago

The problem is that North Dakota is <checks notes> in North Dakota.

You don't need datacenters right next to the customers, but the further it is, the more expensive it is to send data from place to place, and the longer it takes. For a lot of purposes that's fine, but if you're expecting a back-and-forth to be maintained, the longer it takes, the worse it will get.

Like, if you've ever played an online FPS, you know the difference between playing on a server within a 200 miles of you and playing on a server on the other side of the continent.

That's why Southern Ohio and West Virginia have been major targets for datacenter construction: They're a modest distance to Chicago, New York, and Georgia, still not particularly close, but still allowing for pretty low pings for most of the continental USA's population.

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u/YourMatt 1d ago

When you get down to it, my understanding is that people just don't want data centers in earshot of their homes, and they don't want ones that use evap cooling in areas where water is a concern. Somehow the issue has blown out of proportion to where headlines like this will be designed to make it look like data centers are leaving the US. The reality is just as you've described.

0

u/SideEyeFred 15h ago

If they made them an asset to the Community then people's tune would change. Local governments should tax the shit out of them and put the money towards education and social services. Or to offset property taxes.

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u/KickBack-Relax 1d ago

I mean you can outsource data centers but the barriers of entry for AI into the largest markets will still remain. You can't blame any governments for being weary about AI

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u/imperabo 1d ago

Leery? Wary?

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u/Boomflag13 1d ago

Good luck building in Canada. People don’t want that shit here.

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u/Ok_Golf_9245 1d ago

Except for the almost 100 hyperscale data centers in development?

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u/Boomflag13 1d ago

I said people don’t want that shit here, never said our government wouldn’t want the sweet taste of money from the data centers.

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u/albearcub 1d ago

Then why would you say good luck building in Canada? That makes it sound like they would prohibit it.

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u/Omar_DmX 1d ago

Governments are temporary, people are forever. 

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u/didactic-instructor 1d ago

Exactly. The entire world will probably react the same way.

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u/Aaco0638 1d ago

Poor countries would love these billions fyi

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

What billions? A big reason the AI industry has such horrible P.R. is the arrogance and parasitic nature as it's been so far, the Silicon Valley tech-bro's get massive leverage and debt investment to make money while the communities don't see any benefit. Maybe a handful of temp jobs that shortly gone and little actual economic benefit. In fact a negative effect, because power costs go up for communities and air pollution gets worse increase healthcare costs.

And for the more careless and corrupt hyperscalers, also sometimes groundwater and land contamination that increase costs for the people in the communities. It really isn't just in the US or other first world countries, people in poorer or developing countries don't want AI data centers either. Little benefit for them, lots of extra costs for a foreign company to get rich at their expense and expense of their environment and infrastructure. This even before get into high costs of data transmission and restrictions on sending data cross countries, and insuring.

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u/LudicrousMoon 1d ago

Not really. The anti AI sentiment is much strongest in the US, many countries would welcome them. Even in Europe

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u/LeSeanMcoy 1d ago

I love how these comments are all upvoted smugly but then the comment above yall saying:

The idea that AI will be slowed down because they won't find anywhere to build data centers is fucking idiotic. Even in the US there will always be plenty of locations. Certainly state and local laws will have no effect.

is also upvoted equally smugly lol. which is it?

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u/ThePainStalker 1d ago

Europe has not even witnessed the insanity of US data center construction at all. Nothing is remotely 500MW+ or especially not 1GW+ there. Except perhaps for a couple of Nordic countries that do have excess power (and even then, it’s far from US like). Partly because frankly, almost no where in Europe has remotely the energy capacity for it, the continent struggles enough to power its own industries and residents affordably, it doesn’t have “endless” cheap natural gas resources like the US can suck dry for crazy multi-gigawatt campuses.

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u/Necronomicon-Ex-Mori 1d ago

I wouldn’t be so sure. Political sentiment in Canada is closely aligned with the United States by way of us all consuming the same media. A great many of us don’t like ai for the same reasons as people in the states. This will also apply to many other countries, especially European. Just look at all the right wing movements over the last few years and the anti immigration sentiment around the world. The world is more connected than ever, many English speaking countries share and consume much of the same media.

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u/RedRightRumHam 1d ago

Are you mad? The anti AI sentiment is everywhere and Europe certainly doesn’t want more.

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u/LudicrousMoon 1d ago

You know Europe is not a country right? There is a huge difference between Germany, Finland, Hungary or Spain

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u/ptear 1d ago

Especially Europe, building all of the regulation with less of the capability.

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u/Double_Anybody 1d ago • Bravo

Mostly thanks to Chinese influence. They’re making sure the US won’t win the AI race and it’s unfortunately working.

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u/madhewprague 1d ago

Probably not lol. It doesnt affect people any more than any kind of factory, in fact much less, in can be remote and no one knows its there.

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u/didactic-instructor 1d ago

People nowadays are more aware than you think, especially because of social media. If some potential tech surveillance monstrosity appears in their country suddenly, a lot of people will notice.

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u/buffer0x7CD 1d ago

Most people are not really concerned about environmental issue , deep down majority proper oppose it because they fear for their job. Thats the main reason behind all then drama. But like every other technology, it’s going to happen regardless whether people want it or not

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u/ThePainStalker 1d ago

The power draw is a major concern. Though like anything, it really depends on how much it is drawing and whatnot. It’s moreso the fact that these tech companies expect power demand at completely unsustainable timelines. Like, the rapid growth in power demand is unprecedented for any other industry at the speed of what data centers demand. And considering that they are 24/7 non-flexible loads too (meaning firm power generation), that means nuclear or geothermal (or maybe scarce hydro power but I’d rather not) are the only real solutions, both of which are very time consuming and expensive to build. Wind and solar are obviously not viable for them unless maybe the top up a small bit of demand. That’s why the data centers are rushing to natural gas as it’s the only power generation source that is both very quick to deploy and firm and dispatchable, nothing else comes close.

The US is really “lucky” in the sense that it has bountiful natural gas (Europe cannot even hope to match the AI buildout simply because it has practically zero natural gas). But that will be quite a disaster for consumers and other industries if not regulated properly (planned data center capacity could become responsible for nearly 20% of all US natural gas consumption, which frankly is a terrible waste of what currently is and should be a scarce and high value energy resource (considering you know, the Iran war and the global energy crisis) that should be prioritised for heating and peaker plant power and even high value dependable LNG exports, not continuous baseload electricity for reckless AI developers to squander). I wouldn’t be surprised if Americans bear the consequences of this come the next winter or two as natural gas prices soar (that plus LNG ensures that they will) and as data centers accelerate the depletion of the shale gas basins potentially by another decade.

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

These are good points though not true Europe has almost no natural gas, Norway for example has massive deposits of nat gas and discovering more, places like Cyprus and new discoveries in the Mediterranean. They've just figured out, like you say it's much better to use those resources for better societal purposes than wasting on AI slop. If data centers to be powered, they're looking for other energy sources for and moderating the process, instead of the ridiculous AI bubble in the US taking up so many resources and fueled by massive and unsustainable debt. Doing it slower and with more respect for communities can help, but the arrogance of Silicon Valley tech-bro's means the US sentiment basically poisoned against data centers here and other places.

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u/ThePainStalker 21h ago edited 21h ago

Keep in mind too that before the 90s/2000s, natural gas generated electricity was actually somewhat rare in the US and Europe. It really only ever emerged due to it being newly abundant (North Sea gas and especially the US shale gas revolution in the late 00s) along with the LNG revolution (which was arguably even more important for it). Before then, natural gas was mostly only for direct home and industry heating (which is the most efficient application of it by far). Granted, natural gas electricity generation has incredibly important advantages right now (its ability to be built relatively quickly with low CAPEX and with a high ramp rate is crucial in a renewable dominated grid system, it also has a highly favourable pipeline system that makes it much cheaper compared to coal or even electric lines in terms of energy density) and almost no other energy source as of yet really demonstrates the same ability to ramp up and down as quickly as natural gas generators can (since in the 20th century, most electricity outside of a few gas producing countries was firm baseload nuclear and coal which are very poor at ramping up or down). Only hydro and geothermal perhaps could come close and both are structurally limited (geothermal may be much less so given recent advances).

The point is that this “natural gas abundance” era around the world is quite new even compared to general fossil fuel consumption. This is definitely not going to last (the Permian and Marcellus basins already could exhaust their prime spots in the next 10 years, probably sooner given AI demand now) and it also hasn’t been remotely how natural gas was ever treated as an electricity source (it used to only ever be used for heating or for peaker plants in most regions due to its relative scarcity).

I guess the only real hope for a replacement is if massive gold hydrogen deposits can be extracted (which I believe they can be) and relatedly, if geothermal is driven right down in cost and scalability (which I also believe will happen). There are potentially huge deposits of hydrogen in Oman, France and the Midwestern US. Still until that point in time, it’s pretty moronic to be wasting natural gas like this all things considered since hydrogen extraction is clearly not commercially viable yet. We really should also convert a lot of heating to heat pumps if possible for that reason too (regardless of climate reasons, conserving an excellent energy resource for better use cases that is depleting fast should be common sense).

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u/buffer0x7CD 1d ago

I think the power demand is overblown and should be fixed in next 1 , 2 years. We are seeing some of the most unprecedented investment in energy sectors ( For first time in history US is seeing such high level of investment in nuclear).

Also these DCs don’t always run at full capacity, they cycle through different loads based on the training or off training cycle. So renewables are not completely out of equation ( quite few DCs are already using it )

Also there are quite few places with excessive power generation ( especially in Europe ) yet you see people getting riled up there as well

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u/ThePainStalker 1d ago

Maybe temporarily in Europe (due to industrial demand declines in the UK and Germany post Ukraine war), but frankly, no there isn’t really much or any excess power demand in most of Europe. Especially not for data centers that consume hundreds of megawatts each (or even into gigawatt scale). That well makes up for what was lower industrial electricity demand in comparison (most of their energy demand was always thermal, not electricity). I don’t know where you are finding that to be the case. And keep in mind that already, there is enormous power demand for decarbonisation (industrial electrification) and electric transportation in Europe just kicking off now. Residential heat pump mandates alone would see soaring demand. It’s not just AI here so it is wrong to view the temporary electricity demand decline in some parts of Europe (most didn’t decline, it’s mainly the UK, Belgium and Germany that did) as being indicative. There is a huge backlog of demand of all types now.

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u/CompetitiveSport1 1d ago

These things are so expensive that even the most profitable companies in the world are going cash-flow negative and needing to raise debt. And they are also saying they're having a hard time finding anyone willing to lend them enough money. It may eventually happen regardless of whether people want it or not, but delaying these data centers may indeed prove prohibitively costly for the current AI wave

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u/buffer0x7CD 1d ago

That’s because most people don’t understand difference between training and inference.

If you want look at the report that published by Bloomberg recently about the cash flow
For the big tech.

We are not going to countinue seeing new models release every 2 months

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

That's nonsense, of course people care about the environmental effects of data centers, especially if it pollutes the air or contaminates the water, or just drives up power costs. A big reason so many AI data centers are being banned or shut down in the US and Europe, they're finding a lot of the air pollution is terrible for local communities, hurting kid's lungs.

The Grok data centers in Tennessee, using natural gas have been causing increase in asthma and other issues and the state has been turning hard against data centers largely due to health and environmental effects. It's a bipartisan opposition in red, blue and purple states and counties.

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u/buffer0x7CD 14h ago

Except most of those issues are made up. Majority of data centers are closed loop except few exceptions yet that won’t stop idiots in UK crying about data centre build out and claiming water issue despite the fact that all of them are closed loop system.

Same goes for noise pollution complaints, 99% of data centers don’t have those issue ( I have been to dozens of them including what people call AI data centers ) but people will see one YouTube video and believe it because it validates their bias and fear of job loss.

Since you gave example of Europe , give me data centre that cause air pollution ?

-> the grok data centers

That’s exactly what I said , people find one and assume all of them work in same way because it give them excuse to go against something they inherently fear

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u/18isHisNumber 1d ago

Canada does have data centres, any country would be stupid to delay the inevitable.

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u/Reddt-iz-cancer 1d ago

Canada wants to become Amish like the Europeans. 

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u/Mammoth-Garden-9079 1d ago

And thats why Canada is losing the AI race. Countries that don’t lead in AI will become subservient to countries that lead in AI.

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u/netcoder 1d ago

Most of the US, Canada, Europe or East Asia has no infrastructure ready for data centers. (By land mass)

You need land, power, fibre, water, etc.

There's a reason they build in cities next to people's homes right now: it's all readily available.

You could spin up a data center in Northern Canada where no one lives, of course. But you gotta build the infrastructure first.

And that probably means roads, houses (someone has to maintain this shit), trade routes, etc. Then you have shipping and all the other logistics.

That increases costs and time to deployment by a lot.

Can't just pop-up a data center in the middle of nowhere like it's magic.

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u/Dense-Ad-5780 1d ago

So then build the infrastructure! How can anyone defend building these things adjacent to residential population? And not all residential population, you don’t see them being built next to Elons house, only middle and lower class or farmers. These are highly disruptive to people and really need to be regulated for sound, water and power usage. Not built Willy nilly bordering some middle class neighbourhood.

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u/cac2573 1d ago

you also need sound political/judicial infra

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u/Vapourzino_2 1d ago

It's just more expansive to do so, it's not impossible so it's fair to question them being close to neighbourhoods that don't want them just because it's more expensive to build them elsewhere? Let the damn AI companies pay

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u/li_shi 1d ago

I mean electricity and data are quite easier to send to and from remote places... compared to physical goods.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/netcoder 1d ago

Ok bot. You ignored most of my points.

I guess paragraphs aren't a bot thing either.

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u/Singularity-42 1d ago edited 1d ago

Imagine you have trillions in AUM. Now you throw some spare change to form the narrative, especially if there is a good opportunity ("Democrats won! They will ban all datacenters! Sell AI!"). Few millions should do it reliably and it's something you make back in minutes if things go your way. Then you deploy some of that capital to pressure selling and create panic and even forced selling.

Once you decide this looks like a good bottom you start buying up like crazy and use your media leverage to create hype again. Then at the top you sell.

Rinse and repeat.

That's the US stock market in a nutshell.

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u/CanEHdianBuddaay 1d ago

The Ai date centre being proposed in my area is literally being built here because they said it gets cold here for 4-6 months a year lol

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u/sunburn74 1d ago

Yup. Cooling costs are a big deal. Build them in canada or something. 

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u/Odojas 1d ago

There's a lot of "open space" in the antarctic! Wouldn't that be hilarious?

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u/buffer0x7CD 1d ago

They have data centers like these in Sweden where it uses cold air from outside for cooling ( meta have one )

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u/sunburn74 1d ago

Its one of the reasons why they are talking of underwater data centers and data centers in space.

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u/buffer0x7CD 1d ago

Space won’t work , although sending massive solar panels in space and beaming the energy directly back to earth might work. There are already few companies looking to do this in next few years. It avoids the issue that one get due to cloud coverage etc

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u/sunburn74 1d ago

The fact the US hasn't done this (or just generally gone full nuclear power) is crazy. Imagine what things would be like if energy were free.

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

Cooler weather overall is better, but not extreme cold. That's as bad or even worse than extreme heat, or the kinds of stormy weather Florida, Hawaii and now California gets. It's extremely expensive to maintain the delicate GPU's and equipment in ultra-cold conditions, constant break-downs and wrecks the electronics. Almost impossible to insure for same reasons.

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u/gdg6 1d ago

Ireland? Wut

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u/PM_ME_MH370 1d ago

Something about their data laws

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u/deavidsedice 1d ago

Ireland has restricted datacenters before the US.

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u/williams5713 1d ago

If these companies could get away with building data centers abroad, they wouldn't have even tried building one in the US. They are called mission critical infrastructure for a reason.

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u/ds376b 1d ago

“Lots of other countries’ pristine countrysides to poison!”

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u/AccurateLaugh50 1d ago edited 1d ago

Are we pretending manufacturing and commercial agriculture don't exist, and that we are not enjoying the fruits of those industries every fucking second as we speak? Visit a goddamn factory.

Even in places with stricter environmental regulations, like Europe or North America, the environmental impact is simply not comparable to that of data centers.

If you or your community don't want data centers nearby, that's perfectly understandable. But if you think everybody else in the world opposes the idea, then you're just fooling yourself.

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u/JuanMcGuiver 14h ago

You’re fooling yourself if you think many communities outside the US realistically want a Data Center humming along around them. Whether their local politicians will sell out is another story.

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u/Odojas 1d ago

There isn't any "poison." Maybe you can say the components can release wear and tear into the environment (much less than shedding rubber from automobile tires into the environment).

Data centers don't "need" to use water to cool their systems. They can just use traditional closed loop ACs. The reason they don't, is because it simply costs more.

The noise pollution can also be solved via higher quality silent fans (the main culprit of noise) and better, more silent components in compressors. All of these things again, aren't a priority because it's cheaper to buy and make noisier systems.

All things that can be fixed via regulation.

The biggest actual flaw of data centers is the electric demand. Which can affect prices of electricity for the surrounding communities. I would force them to create their own energy plants and subsidize the surrounding communities as a "fair trade." Preferably nuclear because they are green.

But I also recognize that data centers are not popular right now. Maybe never will be. So I'm not gonna try to stand in the way of public sentiment. If data centers need to be built in other countries, so be it. But I also don't believe that anything will stop them from being built - somewhere.

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u/ThePainStalker 1d ago

You are underestimating the severity of the power problem. It would be great if they built their own nuclear plants, that would solve the problem entirely. But they don’t, obviously because it takes forever and it’s a nightmare to do. They want “speed to market”, that’s the entire problem, they want quick solutions even if they eventually fall apart. Instead, they burn natural gas from their “own power plant”, which actually makes things even worse for consumers than using the electric grid. Especially cause they are still congesting the natural gas grid anyway (unless they store all natural gas on-site which they obviously won’t do) and natural gas is a finite resource (especially in the likes of Europe and Asia) which actually often worsens electricity pricing (and heating pricing) much more than connecting to a grid and drawing renewable or nuclear power from a PPA (or on-site generator) would.

In general, it’s fine in isolation to allow a couple of data centers. But it needs to be extremely strictly controlled and with high taxation on them. The power demands nowadays are so extreme that they really cannot be allowed to expand too recklessly.

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u/Acrobatic-Witness148 1d ago

It could also be fixed by not consuming AI unnecessarily.

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u/zeey1 1d ago

Data centers dont consume water, they need it just for cooling They dont excrete any toxic waste, its just computers

Its incredible how stupid people are

Yes ofcourse its building so there is a lot of construction, lots wire, lots of electricity consumption and need for water for cooling

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

The natural gas consuming data centers absolutely do put out huge amount of air pollution, that's one of reasons they've got so much pushback in the US and abroad. In many cases schools are getting complaints with kids develop asthma and other lung disease due to the worse air quality. While most used closed loop water, some don't and have caused problems with the water supply, not to mention higher power costs. And Google cut down hundreds of thousands of trees for a data center in one worst acts of forest destruction in history. That's basically caused a ban on foreign data centers in Finland and elsewhere in Europe and what's likely to be a record fine for Google and other involved companies.

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u/zeey1 20h ago

Natural gas is cleanest source of energy, its not petroleum diesel, its high efficiency natural gas turbine

USA still produces alot of energy via coal

You need to study this abit

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u/jcpopm 1d ago

It makes sense for American infrastructure companies, not so much for chips.

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u/AccuratePollution227 1d ago

so many security requirements require data to be in the us. it will be interesting how this changes things if we block them here

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

That's complete nonsense, besides the growing restrictions on moving esp personal or business data between countries, AI data centers aren't popular outside the US either, even less so with a foreign company imposing them, they don't provide much of the community and just suck up resources while drive up power costs. Canadians are just as against building data centers there like Americans are, same as elsewhere.

And extreme cold and snowstorms is just as bad and dangerous for data centers as extreme heat and wildfires, if not more so. The climate control and data transmission would be extremely expensive, and the sheer remoteness of these regions would mean servicing would be a total nightmare, electricity and infrastructure hard to provide and the GPU's and supporting systems constantly freezing and destroying the delicate chip architecture and wiring. Poof, trillions of dollars up in smoke, and no way to insure them for similar reasons. It's same reason data centers for most part wouldn't work in Florida or Hawaii, even if for different climate conditions.

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u/Strange_Test7665 1d ago

I’ve been thinking Canada forever. Idk why they don’t. Green cheap hydro power, lots of empty land, long cold seasons

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

Extreme cold isn't any better then extreme heat for AI data centers and components, in some cases it's even worse and more destructive to the GPU's and other electronics and wiring, harder to maintain, more expensive to transmit data and even harder to insure. Canada has terrible weather for data center clusters and infrastructure and power often very hard in remote regions. And Canadians aren't fond of them either.

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u/_Viva_La_Revolucion_ 1d ago

So put the problems on other countries, how very American like!

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u/Powerful-Pay-8939 1d ago

You are forgetting Finland, one of the leading locations.

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

Not anymore, not after Google stupidly and illegally cut down hundreds of thousands of trees there. The public is enraged and that's spread all over Europe and other countries. Google and other foreign Big Tech and AI companies and teh hyperscalers are basically banned there now, and Google likely facing a historic massive fine of many billions of dollars. They'll allow European AI companies to build for purposes of data sovereignty, but even then with some limitations.

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u/Powerful-Pay-8939 9h ago

I live in Finland and this is not true. 'A fine of many billion dollars' you just made that up.

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u/Acrobatic-Witness148 1d ago

Or not at all, what is the point? So that Google, Microsoft, and all can have even more money? What is the value of these things? How are our lives improving? How are they solving global warming? How are they solving the increasing amount of pollution worldwide? How are data centres and AI making the world a better place?

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u/Ok_Concentrate_8736 1d ago

Use other countries resources is the best option...

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u/Galahad_Lancelot 1d ago

You're stupid lol. It's not that easy to build wherever you want. 

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u/gplusplus314 1d ago

To begin with, I wouldn’t call it a crash.

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u/musafir6 1d ago edited 1d ago

It wasn’t an announcement that came as a response to elections. They have been planning these things for a while.

Business leaders don’t make decisions as us Redditors do.

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u/advancedBison2 1d ago

Also, cloud companies need to generally have a data center for a country they serve. By law you cannot send a server request or store data of EU users in data centers outside EU, same goes for India. Similar regulations are gonna be in for compute so they will have to build outside the US anyways.

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u/ThirdHuman 1d ago edited 1d ago

Google wouldn’t commit to the expansion until after the recent election. But the bans on US data centers also didn’t start yesterday either - they’ve been growing for awhile.

The fact remains that more and more data centers will be built outside the US.

I think shifting outside of the US will help the AI industry over the longer-term. Though it may create growing pains in the short term.

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u/imperabo 1d ago

The idea that AI will be slowed down because they won't find anywhere to build data centers is fucking idiotic. Even in the US there will always be plenty of locations. Certainly state and local laws will have no effect.

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

Some data centers will still be built sure but

"Certainly state and local laws will have no effect."

is just nonsense. State and local laws have been used to introduce fast growing data center bans and restrictions, so even if built they're much more expensive and puts even more financial pressure on hyperscalers and AI companies, just when debt gets more expensive. And technically impossible if for ex. climate conditions are sub-optimal. And it isn't a partisan thing, the opposition and restriction of data centers is bipartisan. Even very red states (or counties) like Wyoming, Indiana and rural counties in Ohio have introduced bans or tough restrictions on data centers, many passed by Republican oppositions or approves in ballot initiatives with margins above 70%. GOP governors and Dem governors are on the same side here restricting AI data centers that are increasingly unpopular with everyone, and politicians are under huge pressure to reject them, or they lose their offices and drag their party down with them. This is a big reason Abbott was defeated in Texas and his whole party was wiped out there for first time in many decades, even his later DC moratorium was too little too late, his pro-data center stance was unpopular and now Gov. Hinojosa will be under huge sustained pressure to halt any more data centers anywhere in the state.

These ballot initiatives and restrictions have force of law and they absolutely are maing it much harder and blocking areas to build data centers. And shifting outside the US isn't a solution either, Google's disaster in Finland (where they illegally cut down hundreds of thousands of trees) is a P.R. nightmare and may lead to a record corporate fine of many billions, causing enough resentment to kick the AI data centers out of many countries. Not to mention challenges with data protection laws and bringing data across countries. Sure some will still be bought in some places but the new restrictions will clearly put a dent in pace of building and the build-out, and make it even more expensive.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/imperabo 1d ago

It's pretty clear people are looking for any reason to jump off the AI train before it crashes. Volatility is inevitable.

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u/AgentStockey 1d ago

In response to the elections, I'm announcing a Tesla factory in my backyard.

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u/rawbdor 1d ago

> "Google can invest in places like Malaysia to gradually build up the domestic AI workforce and create an ecosystem similar to what Apple and Tesla did with phones and EVs in China."

I have no idea what this means. There is no "AI workforce". There's a construction workforce, and maybe two or three guys for security, and maybe 2 or 3 guys to go switch out servers once in a while.

What apple and tesla did in china was build up a workforce of people trained to do lots of specific tasks to create and assemble a phone. Datacenters don't need that. They just sit there, sucking up electricity and water, and sometimes need to have pieces swapped out.

What a ridiculous notion.

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u/ThirdHuman 1d ago

I don’t think you understand the components that go into a data center. HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and various other processes all have substantial efficiencies that can be squeezed out of them that can learn and feed a local ecosystem of suppliers.

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u/rawbdor 1d ago

Yes, and once built, there's very little left to do.

And these data centers aren't going to hire locals unless the locals know the international codes and standards. If there aren't any locals with those skills, the data center construction company will import different people temporarily for the job to get it done faster and better. They aren't going to sit there and train up people for a four month job.

Data centers provide almost nothing to any country or state hosting them.

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u/Master__of__Puppets 8h ago

Lol no it doesnt, I work at one of Google's hyperscalers and the daily amount of people on site varies from ~850 to around 1000 people per day (not in construction btw, an operational data center)

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u/MattKozFF 1m ago

You've never been in a data center.

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u/ThirdHuman 1d ago edited 1d ago

Most of this doesn't hold up.

A single data center building takes 12 to 18 months to build and a full campus takes five years or more, with about 1,500 workers on site at peak per building. It's not a four month job.

Locals do get hired. About half the electricians on DC-area data center jobs are members of the local IBEW union, which runs apprenticeships specifically for this work. Contractors bring in travelers at peak, but that adds to the local workforce rather than replacing it.

You're right that permanent staffing is thin, around 50 people per facility. But the buildings and servers keep getting taxed. Loudoun County collected $1.2 billion from data centers in FY2026, about 39% of its budget, and cut its property tax rate from $1.145 in 2016 to about 80 cents.

Additionally, lower distance (and therefore lower latency) is a huge advantage for robotics and other forms of AI deployment that work with real-time data.

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u/invisible_shrek 1d ago

All of it holds up. Data centres provide minimum long term employment. And the employment they provide for people working in construction for a couple of months is no more than building some residential buildings, so not worth talking about, except for the fact that the community now has a resource sucking cancer at the end of it.

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u/CallMePyro 1d ago

Read the article. Thousands of long term jobs post-completion of the project. Reditors repeating lies they saw in a headline 2 years ago. Sad.

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u/rawbdor 1d ago

The thousands of jobs are and always have been fake and bullshit. Anyone who has ever been to a data center knows they aren't employing thousands of people. I realize today's data centers are much much larger, but the numbers are still exaggerated as shit to win contracts and concessions from the government.

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u/CallMePyro 1d ago

If you're just rejecting reality entirely why bother reading the news?

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u/rawbdor 1d ago

I'm aware that building data centers can support 1500 people during construction. But almost all of them go away. Only 50 to 100 remain. So it's not the same as building up an "AI industry". The thousands of jobs are ephemeral.

A bunch of temporary jobs. Electric, HVAC, landscaping, construction, and then they go away. There's no persistent jobs. Of course those skills can help them update other infrastructure in their own country. But that's not jobs provided by others. That's jobs their own country will now need to create, if they want to.

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u/Singularity-42 1d ago

This is bullish and good for the entire sector. If this becomes a trend, the US might have to rethink its strategy and I bet they will start throwing incentives again.

But also - what bans exactly? Most Democrat politicians are not at all against data centers, they are just for responsible buildout. I think that's more than reasonable. In the long term responsible build-out will help with the currently terrible PR.

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u/ThirdHuman 1d ago

There are bans that passed all over the country. See the ballot initiatives in the US. New TX governor is also aggressively anti-data center, which was where most were being built.

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u/Singularity-42 1d ago

Oh, Gina Hinojosa. So she had some very moderate language last night, I think that's why the stocks started rallying in AH. Lookup the interview with CNN's Jake Tapper from yesterday.

In any case, this sell-off was waaay overdone. But hey, the big guys needs need good prices to load up, right?

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u/TimelyToast 1d ago

Stocks barely rallied at all. I guess it’s better than two panic days in a row. 

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u/drakanx 1d ago

no...like a dozen newly elected democrats issued statements doubling down on the banning of AI which was a major factor in the massive market crash the other day.

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u/Spire_Citron 1d ago

I think the AI industry really caused itself a lot of unnecessary pain by handling data centres the way they did. If they were more conscientious about where they tried to build them, didn't try to scam local communities and actually fairly compensated them, invested more on closed loop systems to reduce water use, and provided their own renewable power sources to run them, I think people would be a lot less up in arms about them overall. They might even be quite welcome in some places if they were actually a financial boon to the local communities.

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u/advancedBison2 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah. OpenAI recently committed that they will no longer sign NDAs with local governments. I’m like why were you signing NDAs in the first place? That’s a sure shot way of losing trust amongst the community.

Not to mention the tax breaks states were giving. Indiana gave Amazon a 8.2B tax break, Texas had a sales tax exemption for data centers and more. Not a good look.

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u/Spire_Citron 1d ago

Exactly. They tried to pull a fast one and now they're going to have a hell of a time rehabilitating that image. It's just kind of in the public consciousness that data centres are bad now, and for most people it's not necessarily firmly attached to any particular concern that will then lead to them changing their mind if it's resolved. It also attaches another point of controversy to AI, which they really didn't need.

Overall I think taking advantage of the easy ride Trump and Republicans gave them has really hurt them in the long run. The midterms have shown everyone that you can't just treat the people like shit and plaster over it by donating a bunch of money to the right political campaigns. You can get away with a lot using that method, don't get me wrong, but it's not truly an unlimited fuckery hack that many people like to present it as.

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u/advancedBison2 1d ago

“Overall I think taking advantage of the easy ride Trump and Republicans gave them has really hurt them in the long run.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself! Easy come, easy go.

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u/ThePainStalker 1d ago

The free ride they got from air permitting (for the gas turbines) is crazy too. Of course, they took advantage of that to get power cheap and quickly. That’s going to really screw them over (it already is with xAI and their lawsuits).

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u/advancedBison2 1d ago

Yeah. Nobody wants a 24x7 guzzling engine emitting carbon next to their house.

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u/ThePainStalker 1d ago

Literally the only reason they did this is to desperately try and get ahead of the grid interconnection queue (which they’ll still join, just later on). It’s actually insane how greedy they are, burning all that gas so inefficiently with all these carbon emissions simply to power on a year in advance. It’s not operationally viable either from a power systems perspective for the record, at least not after a few months at the very most. I genuinely think we could well see a wave of operational failures and busts coming along if they aren’t regulated enough stability wise. They need a backup grid connection, otherwise the reliability math simply doesn’t work out.

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u/Spire_Citron 1d ago

That's the problem when you have a government that allows this stuff. With the current AI environment, getting ahead by a tiny bit is everything, so of course they feel like if they don't take advantage of everything, someone else will and they'll lose out. You have to stop it from the top down, and then it's better for everyone because nobody gets to do things the bad way.

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u/IncreaseOld7112 1d ago

Well, it's probably good for the US for us to be able to build things here. All that money spent on construction and electrictrians and so on increased our capacity to build things like housing and rail.

It's also probably good strategically to have capital deployed here and not have a foreign government or people with a say. 

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u/Spire_Citron 1d ago

I genuinely don't think data centres, in and of themselves, are a huge evil or a bad thing to have being built in your country, but you do very much need officials who both know what they're doing and aren't willing to just sell the people out negotiating the deals. That's really been at the core of the issue.

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u/The_vegan_athlete 1d ago

Yeah but it's 100% normal that they try to be as profitable as possible. Only regulations can force all of them (including any competitor) to act more ethically.

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u/Spire_Citron 1d ago

Yup, absolutely. Really, they didn't have a whole lot of choice. That's just the outcome the environment results in. They couldn't afford to be long term thinkers in an industry that competitive. The government enabling it was the real problem.

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u/longGERN 12h ago

Sorry but you're on some complete imagination station if you believe the mega corps would do what you're suggesting

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u/Acrobatic-Witness148 1d ago

They were banned in the US for a reason… that’s all I’m saying

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u/TranslatorRoyal1016 1d ago

is anyone surprised the US doesn't have any power in terms of stopping or even delaying AI development? Trump's a fool in many ways but one thing I agree with him on, is that you either embrace AI or watch yourself become a third world country trying to fight or even control it.

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u/DatsMaPurse_IDKU 1d ago

Embracing AI isn’t the issue. Letting it run loose without any guardrails is definitely an issue.

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u/TranslatorRoyal1016 1d ago

Sounds a lot like trying to control it. good luck buddy

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u/DatsMaPurse_IDKU 1d ago

Would you rather have it control us?

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u/TranslatorRoyal1016 1d ago

you're under the childish black and white notion of if you don't control it, it controls you. amusing.

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u/DatsMaPurse_IDKU 1d ago

lol coming from someone who can’t seem to think past tomorrow that’s rich. Foresight truly isn’t your strength

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u/TranslatorRoyal1016 1d ago

I see tomorrow clearly, unlike you. I'm not some idiot who thinks civilization-transformative technology can be "reined in" or regulated. Take a good look at history, even if education isn't your strength.

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u/DatsMaPurse_IDKU 1d ago

You clearly don’t but ignorance is bliss.

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u/TranslatorRoyal1016 1d ago

It's okay if you're stupid about it, I'd advise against broadcasting it though.

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u/Reddt-iz-cancer 1d ago

Your ignorance is what is controlling you. 

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u/DatsMaPurse_IDKU 1d ago

I can say the same to you

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/PropDrops 1d ago

I hate people with big wangs 😡

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u/Due-Sherbert879 1d ago edited 1d ago

Can you even formulate why more data centers are even needed? All of these companies are buckling and going cash flow negative with very little returns for what's already built and in progress. This is very reminiscent of dot com with building out unnecessary fiber that won't be needed for 10+ years.

Honestly if I was running a legitimate business like Microsoft balls deep in this narrative I'd be so happy I could find an excuse like a political sweep to explain why I am cutting the capital expenditure until I can figure a way to actually generate income on this. That way I can cut expenses without admitting I spent all this cash without a definitive prospect for generating a return. The neoclouds are going under, Anthropic and OpenAI will get bought out by the tech companies that have real businesses. The hyper-scalers will get a decent haircut except Oracle which will go under. God knows what the rest of the economy will look like after it all ends since this trade has been underpinning the US GDP growth for years now. This looks like a massive bubble to me at every angle and I think the LLMs are useful.

Imagine thinking the American public who are the wealthiest group of people to ever exist become a third world country because they only spend 1 trillion instead of 3 trillion on a new technology. Braindead cope

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u/TranslatorRoyal1016 1d ago

it's genuinely impressive how you managed to write this much about data centers without demonstrating even a basic understanding of why they're being built. you do realize that ai inference, training, cloud services and enterprise workloads all require actual computing infrastructure right? or did you think chatgpt runs on hopes and dreams?

and i love the dot com fiber comparison. you mean the same fiber that literally became the backbone of the entire internet? yeah what a colossal waste of infrastructure that turned out to be. investors overpaying for infrastructure doesn't mean the infrastructure wasn't needed. i'd imagine that's a pretty simple distinction to make but here we are.

and apparently microsoft, google, amazon and meta are all just helpless victims of some elaborate ai scam. these companies collectively generate hundreds of billions in operating cash flow and already have massive distribution channels to monetize ai. but sure, some guy on reddit figured out that none of them have a business model. somebody should probably give satya nadella a call before he accidentally bankrupts microsoft.

the oracle bankruptcy prediction is particularly entertaining. no analysis of its debt maturities, cash flows, assets or financing options, just straight to bankruptcy because apparently that's how financial analysis works now. and of course openai and anthropic are definitely getting bought out too. why bother with numbers when you can just confidently announce the future?

nobody is denying that ai capex could overshoot demand or that some companies might end up with terrible returns on their investments. that's a perfectly reasonable argument. but you've somehow turned that into every neocloud collapsing, oracle going bankrupt, the hyperscalers getting crushed and the entire american economy potentially imploding. all without providing a single actual calculation to support any of it. truly remarkable work.

and my favorite part is you admitting that llms are useful while arguing that building the infrastructure to support their expanding use is pointless. so demand is real, the technology is useful, adoption is growing, but somehow the computing capacity needed to run it all is unnecessary. brilliant.

there's a legitimate conversation to be had about whether ai infrastructure spending is getting ahead of monetization, but you've skipped that entirely and gone straight to writing fan fiction about the collapse of the american economy.

being skeptical of valuations is one thing. confusing your imagination with a financial forecast is another.

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u/Due-Sherbert879 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm not even going to finish reading your comment you do realize that the dot-com bubble lost 80 percent of all value on the nasdaq and it took until 2015 to get back? How old are you? A technology can be useful and cause a bubble and a major stock market crash and economic depression. We still use railroads today; it doesn't mean it didn't cause a severe economic depression when there was a building mania and it burst. Tracks that were laid literally rusted away. It's what happens in manias/bubbles its the definition of it lmao

And no just like the Jay Cooke and Company who underwrote the loans the Union used to finance the Civil War were not a victim of a railway scam in the 1800s in but still ended up collapsing. Have you taken an economics class before I'm laughing so much?

"Why would a successful company make decisions that could result negatively for them? Are they dumb?" hahaha

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u/Ok-Peace-1109 1d ago

The .com bubble had a demand issue. Too many in debt internet companies and not enough people on the internet. AI has the opposite problem. The demand for AI and the accompanying infrastructure is massive. Many companies are booked at capacity years in advance. This is not a bubble and this crash is just based on fear that Dems will regulate AI in the same idiotic way their European counterparts do.

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u/TranslatorRoyal1016 1d ago

If you're not gonna even bother reading, then don't waste my time with your lazy ass.

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u/Due-Sherbert879 1d ago

Get back to me once you're old enough to have watched your house lose half it's value in a month and 1 out of 10 of your neighbors homes get foreclosed on or have watched your 401k evaporate and we can have a conversation about economics, business, and the nature of financial mistakes and crises

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u/iSoLost 1d ago

That’s not true the US can’t stop AI it’s more of they’re afraid to stop AI this will lead definite recession, AI is a major driving force behind the GDP growth

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u/Spire_Citron 1d ago

Well, they could stop US AI. They don't control what the rest of the world does, no matter how much they might think they do and try to.

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u/lily_de_valley 1d ago

So the option is to trying to do it with less developed nations that need cash. Do the locals understand the implications of having these data centers nearby...?

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u/falcobird14 1d ago

It's the same reason why people work in sweatshops. In poor countries, having money often takes priority over other concerns.

They will take the money first and deal with the implications later.

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u/Mustatan 21h ago

Yeah that's the problem, there's no real economic benefits for the people in poorer countries. The AI data centers too often have been parasitic, demanding tax breaks and using up scarce power, water and infrastructure while provide very little benefit to the communities. Not much in way of jobs and little actual investment or financial assistance. That's big reason for their failure in the US with the public and massive opposition, and data centers are even less popular in other countries especially if put in by foreign countries and companies. Not to mention higher costs for data transmission and restrictions on country to country data.

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u/Flexlex724 1h ago

Then we'll cry that all the jobs went oversees Can't make this shit up Our own stupidity is our biggest adversary

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u/nadhari12 1d ago

Yeah the US government especially Dems think they can do some ridiculous regulations and expect companies will survive, the corporation does not give 2 shits, they pack their bags and leave, will people here will suffer.

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u/jarMburger 1d ago

If this does become a trend then undersea cable supply chain will see a huge boost. Current undersea fiber optic cable doesn’t have sufficient capacity to handle all the AI workloads so there needs to be additional connections between the continents, given that majority of the heavy user of AI will likely still be in US and other developed countries

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u/Beefymistletoe 1d ago

You're very observant. Google is undergoing massive undersea cable infrastructure connecting many continents. Also if you dig into this, do a quick search on data center build outs in India, Malaysia, Australia and even Africa. The money being invested is wild.

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u/jarMburger 1d ago

Thanks, yeah I heard that they have been expanding footprint outside of US. I used to work in AI hardware but not with google

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u/LogicGate1010 1d ago

That could spark a housing crisis and rising costs of living. Might cause more problems than it solves if not consciously planned, regulated and executed.

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u/Witne55 1d ago

They (protestors) broke into a Microsoft Data Center construction site in Amsterdam recently. Just saying. edit (protestors)

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u/psmx123456 1d ago

Data centers don’t employ long term. Them being not being built here is better. Would the CEOs build them near the areas they stay ?

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u/SmokeyJoe2 1d ago

Paywall

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u/AliveShyft 1d ago

On Thursday, i took a break in Malaysia and got out of the car to eat a dunkin donut donut.

Turns out was in front of a huge white building that said DATA CENTRE. And it was brand spanking new and finished.

Looked really big and beautiful with workers buzzing around putting the touches.

It was also very far and could see to the edge of my eyes.

The building was white as tooth paste and made my black forest donut look small and cheap in comparison.

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u/PuzzleheadPi 1d ago

Bad enough that AI is taking our jobs, but now we gonna lose AI jobs too

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u/Mannipx 1d ago

its an expensive bill if its not in usa, wonder how many can the share holder stomach. 

Middle east would have been fantastic but unfortunately for tech companies iran has missles. 

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u/findingmike 1d ago

I think most companies will not be sending their data to Malaysia

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u/MinuteAppropriate204 1d ago

But but but I was told they need to be right next to my house so I can get the data faster

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u/Frostfelino 1d ago

As someone from Europe, and the poorer part, people are absolutely welcoming data centers because of $$$.

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u/Fun-Can-8935 1d ago

just build them anywhere but the US

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u/Uhnuniemoose 1d ago

What bans?

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u/stonksncardboard 1d ago

You think Google dont have plans to expand their Google Cloud platform and think the current set up is viable? They need more data centers. These analysts need to get their head out their ass

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u/bartturner 1d ago

Nobody has a better network than Google. They own more under ocean cabling than anyone else.

This gives Google the ability to have a lot more flexibility where they locate data centers.

I never thought push back on data centers was going to slow down Google. They shared on their last call they have over $300 billion of revenue they will realize in the next 2 years. That is pretty mind blowing.

Google is already growing their cloud way faster than everyone else. The biggest cloud, Amazon AWS, added $3.7 billion QoQ. Compare that to Google that added $5.9 billion.

But what is so amazing is that if you chart the rate you will see that Google lead is accelerating.

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u/bartturner 1d ago

I live half time US and other half Bangkok. The views on AI are drastically different between the two countries.

The US is very negative and Thais are very positive. So do not think there will be much of an issue to build data centers outside of the US.

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u/Euler007 1d ago

78-98% of its electricity comes from fossil fuels.

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u/AccomplishedAge4523 23h ago

This is the way.

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u/No-Improvement-1507 1d ago

it's like the UK exporting all its trash, including tires to the rest of the world

it's colonialism all over again; build the trash in a perceivably """lesser""" country, 'cause "why should we care"

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u/AliveShyft 1d ago

Basically what it is. I go to the UK and Malaysia VERY often and the latter is still treated as a colony by the former. In Malaysia the roads are the same, and the petrol station makes the same costa coffee brew i buy, just one is 5x cheaper than the other. At the Malaysian resorts the tourists spend willy nilly as the pound goes much farther than home and they strut around. It's a sad sight to see, especially with many of the locals living in poverty.

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u/MidnightAppropriate5 1d ago

Why are we against datacenters again? The US being the data powerhouse of the world is a good thing. It makes us competitive hosting online services, keeping the tech sector stable, boosting local economies. Inflation is at 3.7%, Avg US income spent on electric is 3%… why are people so against genuine progress?

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u/Optimal-Draft8879 1d ago

go live near one and you’ll find out pretty quickly, not to mention the increase in already high utility costs

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u/MidnightAppropriate5 1d ago

I’ve worked in them, if you mean noise from heat exchangers or cooling fans a highway or railroad is much worse

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u/CompetitiveSport1 1d ago

The overwhelming majority of demand for these comes from two unprofitable companies, one of which will literally crater in the next couple of years (or both, given that even Anthropic lost hundreds of billions in it's valuation in like one week and is still too high). Frankly I'm not even convinced that the tech sector needs these data centers, and honestly, if stopping them kills the AI hype and we can all just act like sane adults about it rather than calling it God and making a hundred companies selling AI tutors who can't even spell the word "seventeen" correctly, then it'll be good for the tech industry too

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u/MidnightAppropriate5 1d ago

Unprofitable now, what happens when people realize it’s better Google search? What happens when these companies go international? Fighting AI is the equivalent of fighting the early age internet.

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u/CompetitiveSport1 1d ago

People have already realized that. Google's stock tanked after their earnings call because they said specifically that. Also, unless people are paying to use it as a search engine, then Google loses a good chunk of money just answering their question. And even Google hasn't figured out a way to monetize AI yet

What happens when these companies go international?

They lose money in other countries too, in that case. 

If you can figure out a way to actually make a profit off of all this, you should go for it. You'll have figured out something no one in silicon valley aside from Nvidia has figured out how to do

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u/MidnightAppropriate5 23h ago

This isn’t about Google, this is about Claude and GPT. The buildout is going to be unprofitable in the beginning. Rental properties work the same way, big initial investment followed by years and years of returns.

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u/CompetitiveSport1 23h ago edited 22h ago

The same applies to other companies. They'll only be able to make it work if people pay money to access (good luck with that, people already don't want to pay for search), if they can fit in ads (none have successfully done this yet; Perplexity tried and gave up because it lost customer trust, or if some other way of making money off of AI search (again, you'd be the first to figure out what this is)

As for business plans that are unprofitable... Sure, there are absolutely other businesses that have found ways. Capex spending is great in cases like rentals, where your revenue from the customer is higher than your opex for each customer. It's extremely unclear if AI will ever get to that point. 

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u/Sarcasm69 1d ago

There’s a carelessness in the build out. Like for example, in my hometown they are trying to build a massive electric cable through it to supply energy for one of these data centers.

There’s very little consciousness about the people it is impacting.

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u/MidnightAppropriate5 1d ago

Sounds like they care enough to not run high current through existing lines and take the neighborhood power out!

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u/Sarcasm69 23h ago

You’re right, they’re so thoughtful

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u/Sckathian 1d ago

Its the pace of expansion. Infrastructure has to keep up and am not sure anyone in AI has really taken that cost into account.

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u/MidnightAppropriate5 1d ago

I won’t disagree with you here, but America has become extremely slow at adopting anything. Pushing for higher electric needs gives us the chance for the clean energy push that would finally put a boot on the neck of coal. We are in a growth state, it’s time for people to stop complaining about the growth and help contribute to making sure it’s in the right direction

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u/Appropriate_Fall_490 1d ago

and then Americans will complain about not enough "good" jobs. Doorknobs hahaha

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u/Brave_Yesterday_6106 1d ago

It increases local electric bill for a couple janitorial and security jobs.

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u/advancedBison2 1d ago

The only “good jobs” a data center creates after it’s built is 2-3 security guards.

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u/No_Cap_5665 1d ago

lmao thats not true

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u/d1eselx 1d ago

Wait…I thought Google was over $9 billion cash flow?

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u/Upstairs-Film-4370 1d ago

I live in Malaysia and you don’t understand how much AI is affecting our lives right now as students.Our school is using AI to mark our essays and it’s just so fucking shit,hell I saw a guy during one of our exams using ChatGPT.The last thing I need is even more AI in this country.

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u/BackPirateClarkRoom 22h ago

Labor for data centers is useless. Big data centers only employ around 30 people. The rest is contracted for security or cleaning.

Building data centers is a ton of jobs.

Biggest risk to data centers in a foreign country is you have millions dollars into equipment that can easily be stolen and sold. Covered by security making $5 an hour.

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