Cloud Home

Data Centers seem very much in the news. Although, to be fair, it may simply be something that’s on my mind and the algorithms are making sure I see it. In either case, I want to talk about them, and I’m not sure I need an excuse. Mostly, the news I’ve heard is that people don’t want them, cities don’t want them, and states don’t want them because they use lots of electricity, they use lots of water, and they take up space with ugly buildings.

They were on my bad list, too, until I looked into the matter and realized that Data Centers are the cloud come to earth. All the pictures on our phones live there, as do our medical records, driving records, property records, Facebook profiles, Instagram reels, TikTok reels, maps, addresses, phone numbers, and the software we use at work and home, to name only a few of the things that make modern society go. It’s also where Artificial Intelligence lives and learns. So, to me, Data Centers are beginning to feel like garbage dumps. You need them for a well-functioning society, but nobody wants one in their backyard.

But guess what? They’re all over. There are more than 4,000 of them in the US. I even found a map that shows their locations. My home state, Texas, leads the country in data centers. I found this out because I talked to Claude to ensure I knew what Data Centers did, then asked Claude for a map. Here’s a link to our conversation. In the end, I appreciate their role in my life, but I think the big conversations about where we put them are only starting and it will be easy for emotions and self-serving politicians to muddy the waters.