Tuesday, December 23, 2025
The search for places to put these ever-larger data centers has led to some wild concepts, including putting data centers in space. The idea is that, aside from not occupying valuable land, a space-based data center would use solar power. Although the challenges in putting hardware into space are numerous, we like that it moves the need for cooling, power, and land off the planet.
China has been developing undersea data centers to leverage the ocean's cooling capabilities. The project also uses wind power, further reducing the resources gobbled up by the data center's hardware.
It's worth noting that the ever-growing number of AI data centers is costly for people living nearby, not just for the companies building them. As we noted recently, massive AI data centers sometimes lead to significantly increased power bills for residents. In other cases, power utilities are struggling to keep up with the demands from data centers in their service areas. In fact, there are data center shells in Santa Clara, CA, that could wait for years before seeing power from the local utility. And, of course, these massive facilities eat up large swaths of land. But with AI buoying the economy (for now), the number of data centers under construction will continue to explode.
By: DocMemory
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