In the News! Data Centers

00;00;21;03 – 00;00;49;22
Unknown
This is all things considered on WABE 90.1. I’m Jim Burris. This month, our newsroom is looking into the fast growing trend of data centers taking up shop in Georgia. We’re calling it server South. It’s a simple supply and demand equation. I, in advanced computing take a lot of processing the places that happens have to go somewhere. And as I found out from science for Georgia executive Director Amy Sharma, the Atlanta area is an easy target.

00;00;49;25 – 00;01;18;14
Unknown
The data center picture in Georgia is, I would call it a data center invasion. We have a lot of data centers already here, and apparently we have cheap land power and water. And so we are very attractive to data centers that are looking to expand and grow their footprint. So a lot of them are looking at coming to Georgia, and a lot of them are already here.

00;01;18;21 – 00;01;46;19
Unknown
When we say a lot, do you have any numbers? Well, I sort of have numbers. Which is probably part of the problem with data centers. So, there’s no official public listing of data centers. Georgia itself doesn’t really track them under a specific, city code or anything. And so to find all these data centers I sent my interns out on like this two month scavenger hunt, basically.

00;01;46;19 – 00;02;18;07
Unknown
So they went through, like, tax records and newspaper articles and all sorts of things. And so we believe there’s between 95 and 110 data centers already here. And then we’ve found about ten more planned. Mainly they are concentrated in the Atlanta metro area. Can you put a data center anywhere? Pretty much. The thing a data center needs is access to power lines so they can get all the power that they need.

00;02;18;08 – 00;02;41;05
Unknown
They need access to a good broadband connection so they can get the data back and forth pretty easily. And they need access to a water source to keep themselves cool. Which is why they have been migrating to the Atlanta area from a like a zoning perspective. Is there anything, you know, distinctive about a data center that makes it go through any kind of different process?

00;02;41;12 – 00;03;09;08
Unknown
Currently, the ones that exist here are kind of smaller data centers, and so they didn’t really have to go through any sort of special zoning. But now that the larger footprint data centers are coming in, they do actually need to get a zoning ordinance through the local city there, because it’s just going to be such a large footprint, and the power and water demands are going to be so high that they need to be zoned appropriately.

00;03;09;11 – 00;03;36;12
Unknown
What are potential advantages? So the only real economic advantage to having a data center close to you is tax revenue, because they sit on land and they pay taxes on that land that they sit on, and hopefully they’re paying taxes on the power and the water that they draw. There isn’t really anything else. They only employ like 30 people.

00;03;36;14 – 00;04;09;11
Unknown
And the people actually using the data center functionality could be sitting anywhere in the world. What are the disadvantages of having a data center near you? The disadvantages? They put a quite a big strain on the local power and water infrastructure. They don’t really provide anything except tax revenue. So you’re taking up this giant footprint of your land that could be used for some other business, that could actually employ human beings or grow crops or something else.

00;04;09;12 – 00;04;38;02
Unknown
So there’s a big footprint loss right there. And then, there’s starting to be reports that they kind of have this low level hum, that after a while is starting to really bother people. If I were to pass a data center, would I know it? Probably not. Somebody hearing this may feel there’s an element of NIMBYism. If we’re all going to use AI in the future, do we not bear responsibility to maybe, you know, cradle it as well?

00;04;38;09 – 00;05;02;17
Unknown
Yeah, that’s I agree. I like the Nimby argument. Right. Because for sure we all benefit from data centers, so we all benefit. I think what the argument is starting to become is that data centers so far are not being very good neighbors, right? Like they have come in and they have convinced economic development authorities that they are bringing in a lot of money.

00;05;02;22 – 00;05;23;06
Unknown
And so they should be getting, a discount on the taxes that they pay and a discount on the power that they buy. And a discount on the water that they use. And so they’re taking a lot more from the people in the area of them than they’re giving back. Amy Sharma is executive director of science for Georgia.

00;05;23;08 – 00;05;39;17
Unknown
Amy, thanks for talking to us this afternoon. We appreciate it. Thank you so much, Jim. Been a pleasure. I really appreciate it. And keep up with our series Server South online at web Dawgs data centers and throughout the month of May on web 90.1.