Data center developer pauses Middle East projects after war damage
- Thread starter JournalBot
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Did Amazon really "choose" to waive charges if they are forced to by local law? If that happened in the USA, I assume they have a force majeur clause to absolve them of any financial responsibility. (whether or not they'd risk the PR hit if they actually invoked the clause is another question)
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This is going to push the geostationary orbit data center idea even harder. I still don't see how the economics of that concept could ever work unless we were living up there and could easily maintain and upgrade them, i.e., attached to a permanent ring habitat at GEO.
I'm sure some of these things will get launched. I'm not thinking it will be many before the cost doesn't make sense.
As for the "war damage", I'd look the the Trump and Netanyahu administrations for restitution. They started it. Yes, I chose "restitution" carefully.
I'm sure some of these things will get launched. I'm not thinking it will be many before the cost doesn't make sense.
As for the "war damage", I'd look the the Trump and Netanyahu administrations for restitution. They started it. Yes, I chose "restitution" carefully.
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I'm not an MBA, but if I'm like "This could protect DCs from property damage in the even of a protest", then this is probably a selling point on the spec sheet for B2B military solutions.
"B2B military solutions", I hate our timeline!
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I don't see how that would ever be financially viable... or even demonstrably safer than a terrestrial datacenter. I'd think that it'd be cheaper to build an entirely underground datacenter cheaper than putting one in orbit.
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Yeah, until Russia shoots them down...
https://meincmagazine.com/space/2026/...now-operationalizing-co-orbital-asat-weapons/
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Adding missile defense systems to the existing infrastructure is not trivial. It has been reported that the drones used in these strikes cost Iran around $20 K to $30 K each while the interceptors cost around 1-2 miillion $. Replenishing the fast-dwindling stocks will be even more expensive. As it stands, even failed strikes are still successful in depleting the US war chest.
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These are the sorts of realities that interfere when your only concern is whether something makes you look tough or not. It's just not as simple as, "Me make war, me look strong."
When everything looks simple to you, you're probably a simpleton.
When everything looks simple to you, you're probably a simpleton.
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But we have infinite missiles! Much like it's possible to lower prices by hundreds or thousands of percent... You just have to believe it's true and and miraculously it is. It's TDS.
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If anything, the math is even more lopsided against the defense systems. The Iranian drones are more expensive than necessary because (1) Iran is under sanctions and cannot access global supply chains and (2) drones launched from Iran need to cross vast distances to reach their targets.
For civilians who want to disrupt datacenter operations, the cost of conducting these attacks can be as low as a few hundred dollars per drone (i.e., remote controlled explosives duct taped to an FPV drone).
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Given the huge amounts of water these AI datacenters tend to churn through for cooling, I'm wondering how they're going to find that given the regular water shortages in that region. And it's not like the Middle East is known for its cool climate.
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Good thing all these companies indicated their preference in the 2024 election because if the other candidate had won they might have ended up paying a little more in taxes and we all know how disruptive that can be.
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It is almost like infra capex is a bad idea in a region prone to lots of conflict. Who could have imagined that?? Clearly not the highly paid analysts and managers who drew up these plans.
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Yeah I'm sure this time it won't take decades like gulf war 2 and Afghanistan
Seriously, if the USA couldn't defeat the Taliban how will it defeat Iran?
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The SkyFall P1-Sun supposedly intercepts Shahed drones for $1,000. The big defense contractors don't make money on them though and I doubt Trump will buy interceptors from Ukraine.
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How do you even solve for the problem that computers and the radiation environment in space don’t mix well? It’s not quite as bad inside the Van Allen Belts, but there’s still a lot of radiation the atmosphere stops that does bad things to nanometer scale chips.
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The biggest problem with world-wide militarization is not the GDP loss from defense spending.
It's the idea that once you build the factories for mass manufacturing low-cost weapons, you are increasingly likely to use them.
It's the idea that once you build the factories for mass manufacturing low-cost weapons, you are increasingly likely to use them.
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Tech bros seem very capable of thinking they know better than history and are happy to learn some things the hard way. Of course they think they can "conquer" the Middle East. Maybe they should heed the words of Vizzini in The Princess Bride - "never get involved in a land war in Asia".
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The same way the build them in the (ever expanding) deserts of the USA: stealing water from humans that need it to drink it. Copilot isn't going to cool itself!
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"tech companies cannot pretend to be mere bystanders in the ongoing conflict"
At least in public. I would guess that Big Tech actually has quite a few capabilities that would be extremely useful but they certainly won't advertise any help provided to the US Gov unless they're explicitly selling that sort of stuff (Palantir)
At least in public. I would guess that Big Tech actually has quite a few capabilities that would be extremely useful but they certainly won't advertise any help provided to the US Gov unless they're explicitly selling that sort of stuff (Palantir)
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Instability and uncertainty are anathema to big investments. That is business school 101 stuff. Yet if there is one thing Trump is known for, aside from lying and weaponizing the court system, it is that he changes his mind at the drop of a hat(most often after somebody does something that displeases him).
The fact that they have tricked the voting public into believing that they are good businessmen astounds me. Trump and his ilk are parasites who have never created anything of actual long term value.
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I'm an independent warrior. I'm protecting my own local CPU, GPU, SSD, HD, MB, RAM, and PS. They'll have to pry my local PC from my cold, dead hands!*
*Or maybe not. The thing won't be worth a shit when they stop writing local software to run on individual PCs.
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Poor Nelson, he has so much laughing to do these days it's not even fun anymore.
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OTOH adding air defense seats could make large scale data centers into the employment hubs that small towns keep getting sold on. But I'm not sure that the UAE or Saudi govts are looking for additional jobs at this point.
/ s of course
/ s of course
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"Kinks"? It's financially and technically virtually impossible.
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These ranges are far outside the capabilities of FPV drones. Not only that, it’s not common that PAC-2s are being used to take down Shaheds. APKWS and Coyotes are being used against OWAUAS. The missile interceptor for drone attack is a a widely held misconception but it will persist forever essentially.
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I'm not sure if this was required by law, but it was always going to happen. My understanding is that the usage metering data in the regions are less than complete and service availability is still degraded. Also, though the article doesn't mention it, AWS Bahrain is gone. I mean, I assume it hasn't completely burned to the ground, but the software teams lost contact with it weeks ago and it's likely the metering services there are just toast. If you can still get any utility out of it at this point I think you should be welcome to it. It's going to be a major project on the scale of a full region rebuild to get it working again, assuming the shooting ever stops.
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Remind me again how steam turbine power plants work? I even gave you a bigly hint. If I need to lead the witness more, feel free to ask.
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I don't trust the first article. According to the article:
"On the other side, when Morgan Stanley projects that AI could consume “a trillion liters” of water by 2028, they’re including three categories: direct cooling at data centers, the water footprint of electricity generation (mostly from fossil fuel power plants), and semiconductor manufacturing. "
Besides not including a source, he also doesn't give a justification why Morgan Stanley would be anti-AI.
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And how exactly did a 60's rock band from Britain get up there in the first place?
/s
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Pitch that to The Boring Company, their high speed underground highways are nearly stationary anyway, "from the standpoint of traffic". The Muskrats ultra-high speed (4,000 MPH) undersea vacuum tunnels even offer nearly limitless cooling, but are still all wet, "from the standpoint of water" (and especially, reality).
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Wow. That first link is filled with supposed examples of people being Chicken Littles. But in reality most of them just show how smugly wrong the writer is about things like the societal effects of the printing press (which accelerated the Reformation, leading to millions of deaths in European conflicts fueled by religious sectrarianism), loss of musician jobs due to the introduction of talkies (yes, studios employed entire orchestras but that consolidation didn't offset the widespread job losses), or the vast differences in information delivery and density through a synchronous medium like television instead of an asynchronous medium like text.
And all this is just leading up to his main argument which is merely a long list of whataboutist examples of other ways water is wasted. I mean, his points about distortions in data to serve agendas are perfectly accurate but when he gets into "tribal signaling" and then describes how he wants these arguments to shape his son's thinking the irony is painful.
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We already have video footage of Iraqi militias flying FPV drones uncontested through US military bases and destroying helicopters. It is safe to assume that private datacenters will be less well-protected than military bases.
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MilanKraft
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Would it be wrong to hope some of US-based AI data centers are also attacked by people with drones, so long as we stipulate none of the skeleton crews who work there should be harmed? I'm certain there are some ethical, enterprising Ukrainians who can help.
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