‘Irresponsible’: backlash as Utah approves datacenter twice the size of Manhattan

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/13/utah-approves-datacenter-backlash

281 points · 26 comments · view on lemmy.world

26 Comments

ceenote@lemmy.world · 69 pts · 133d (4 replies)

Who cares what these naysayers think, this data center will create as many as 26 new jobs!

Prox@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 133d (2 replies)

And think of the extra tax revenue!*

*only from the income of those 26 people, because the data center business itself will get huge tax breaks for building in our state

ceenote@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 133d (1 reply)

Only from 5 of those people, because 21 of them will live in San Francisco and visit the new data center once a year or so.

chaogomu@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 133d

And those 5 are janitorial staff, who are paid minimum wage and thus are not making enough to be taxed.

crusa187@lemmy.ml · 16 pts · 133d

I know you joke and I did have a chuckle. The tech jobs offered by these projects are so few and far between it is truly laughable.

We’re fighting a data center construction by Google in our area. One of the major obstacles is that blue collar workers, electrical hvac etc, all believe this will bring them new jobs and continued work in maintenance of the facility over the years.

They aren’t necessarily wrong on that point, and it’s a challenge to convince them that infrasound noises they can’t hear will make them sick over time.

I wish they were this excited about building and maintaining solar and wind projects instead of data center generators, but alas, many of them are constantly subjected to propaganda painting green tech in a negative light.

Fishnoodle@lemmy.world · 57 pts · 133d

It was fun explaining to my wife how resources in a public utility are pooled, and if someone comes along and takes 90% from the pool, the price on the remaining 10% goes up exponentially

roguetrick@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 133d (6 replies)

What are they trying to do, simulate heaven for LDS members where they become Gods of their spirit children? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exaltation_(Mormonism)

daggermoon@piefed.world · 6 pts · 133d (3 replies)

Mormonism is fascinating to me.

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 133d (1 reply)

Magic underwear and tithes. Fucking crazy cult.

daggermoon@piefed.world · 1 pts · 133d

I was unaware of the magic underwear. Please do tell.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 133d

How so? It creeps me out

Skuldug@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 133d

That just reminded me of 'the nine billion names of god' by Arthur C. Clark.

ramble81@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 133d

They’re building the Foundry from West World.

Kirk@startrek.website · 12 pts · 133d (5 replies)

Does anyone actually know the stated purpose of this project? It surely can't just be for LLMs but I haven't been able to find anything.

LLMhater1312@piefed.social · 9 pts · 133d (1 reply)

I would suspect department of war at that size

Kirk@startrek.website · 2 pts · 133d

Sure but still, like, for what?

ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world · 6 pts · 133d

It's weird that it's difficult to identify. But there already is an NSA data center in utah, so maybe it is for the us government. You would think someone would have learned their lesson on how that one turned out?

WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 133d

The only way this kind of massive facility can be profitable is if its builders expect to use it to steal the jobs of legions of white collar workers. That's literally the only way this is profitable.

OpenPassageways@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 131d

Based on what Oleary said in his interview with Tucker Carlson, he doesn't have a tenant yet. So billionaires are building these datacenters with the expectation that hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, Microsoft will be renting that compute from them.

Will that actually come to fruition in a way that justifies the billions invested? I guess we will see.

Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 133d (1 reply)

They got what they voted for, its a bit late to complain now

youcantreadthis@quokk.au · 5 pts · 133d

Fuck that electoral bullshit they have guns they could fight if they wanted to.

phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 133d

Utah. Don't they have boatloads of those 2A idiots out there, that always scream about how they will stop evil governments when it happens?

Well? We're waaiiting

Swaus01@piefed.social · 7 pts · 133d
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Zizzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 133d (3 replies)

Twice the size of manhattan? Where are we getting this number from? Thats not realistic in any sense. Just three centers place apart from each other and were counting all the deadspace in-between? Why do they need the space in-between?

Zier@fedia.io · 7 pts · 133d (1 reply)

They claim the data center is on 62 square miles. Manhattan is 33.6 square miles.

potpotato@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 133d

So that Manhattan figure includes 10.8 sq miles of water.

Regardless of the building footprint, the 40,000 acres limit of disturbance is impactful to local watersheds. Not to mention the plan it to create a (useless, IMO) device that consumes two-fold the energy as the entire state.

bedwyr@piefed.ca · 0 pts · 133d

Yeah there is no way that land is all building.