Data Centres

Health

• Data centres emit sounds from the humming of cooling systems, rumbling of diesel generators, and whirring of fans, which can be heard for hundreds of feet around them.

Electricity

• Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centres.
• By 2028, data centres could use 12 percent of all the electricity consumed in the U.S. and that percentage will grow.

Water

• Data centres of Quality Technology Services, owned by Blackstone, guzzled 30 million gallons of water and nobody noticed for months.
• Largest data centres can guzzle millions of gallons of fresh water a day.
• A study predicts that 60-80% of India’s data centres will face high water stress in this decade itself as a result of limited resource availability.

Air

• xAI, owned by Elon Musk, is using natural gas-burning turbines at its Memphis data centre without obtaining necessary permits.

Jobs

• City governments give data centre companies big tax breaks meant to revitalize local economies. Companies promise relatively few jobs in return.