What are Data Centers for?

bèlla said:

The Housing Project Thats Putting Datacenters In Your Home

@essentialsaltes touched on this but the video is more in depth and I saw it yesterday. Pulte isn't the only builder participating. The channel includes additional links on the subject if you want to learn more or you're in the market for a home and want to know who to watch out for.

........

Hi everyone, I'm issuing a serious home buyer alert today about a troubling trend in new construction homes. I’ve learned that builders are partnering with SPAN to install ‘mini data centers’ on the side of new houses. While this sounds modern, it means you could own a home with a corporate-owned box you may not be legally able to remove, effectively making your property host their infrastructure for AI capacity.

You get no meaningful financial cut from the revenue these generate. The promised perks, like temporary reduced utility costs and a backup battery (mainly for the data center), just don’t outweigh the risks in my opinion. I’m concerned about higher homeowner’s insurance premiums, increased fire risk, and unknown long-term health effects as these units are untested.

Before buying new construction, always ask about easement deeds and any external corporate hardware. If once you review all the data and terms you are comfortable that is your choice but make sure you are going in eyes wide open. Right now this is in proof of concept phase expected to be trialed on 100 homes. I will be watching as this develops and I truly hope if it continues that they give homeowners the ability to have the panels removed for free if they don't like them.

~bella

Click to expand...

JustaPewFiller said:

Interesting.

A thought hit me as I was reading this and watching the video. Why aren't commercial businesses with lots of locations getting in on this act? They may even already have the increased electrical capacity to handle it and most of them have some space either behind the business or in a part of the lot that could be used for it.

In other words, why isn't McDonald's, 7-11, Dollar General, etc saying to the AI companies - "Hey, why don't you come put one of those mini-data centers behind each of our stores?! We'll rent you a some space behind the store for $$XX per month?!"

Since the tech for these "mini-datacenters" apparently exists it seems like it would be an easy way businesses with many locations to make some extra $$ and an easy way for AI companies to boost their capacity.

Click to expand...

Eight data centers threaten to transform this small Texas county. Local officials say they have no power to stop them.​

essentialsaltes said:

Eight data centers threaten to transform this small Texas county. Local officials say they have no power to stop them.​

“We love liberty and love a lack of regulation,” said Greg Harrell, chair of the Hood County GOP, at a town hall earlier this year. “Data centers are taking advantage of it… They saw an opportunity.”

“Texas is a great state to do business. All of that really has come together to help make Texas, again, one of the national leaders in digital infrastructure,” said Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy with the Data Center Coalition.

--

Instead of green, about 600 yards away from their garden, they could soon be looking at 2,100 acres of warehouse-like structures filled with computing servers that process the digital world, flattening their scenic view into something industrial. The site plan calls for a campus that spans almost six times the size of University of Texas at Austin’s main campus. Its Florida-based developer refers to it as the Comanche Circle project, but the eventual company that will run the data center has not been publicly revealed.

This is just the beginning of the data center revolution in Hood County, a rural community of 62,000 people about an hour southwest of Fort Worth. Developers have proposed eight data centers spanning over 7,600 acres, or 12 square miles. While it’s unclear how much power all of the facilities would require, the Comanche Circle data center, plus two other smaller projects from the same developer, could use up to 3 gigawatts of electricity at full capacity, according to its developer — enough to power about 3 million homes. Some of the power could be generated by a new on-site gas plant, and some will likely come from the state’s power grid, according to the project’s concept plan.

Massive data centers are also flooding the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s main grid operator, with requests for power. As of May, ERCOT reported that large projects requesting to connect to the grid totaled 439 gigawatts of power capacity — five times larger than the all-time peak demand on the state’s grid. Of those projects, about 89% are data centers, though energy experts say it’s unlikely that all of them will be built.

TL;DR, but good article

Click to expand...

Nithavela said:

If water, energy and space is an issue, I suggest culling the useless human population.

Click to expand...

essentialsaltes said:

Eight data centers threaten to transform this small Texas county. Local officials say they have no power to stop them.​

“We love liberty and love a lack of regulation,” said Greg Harrell, chair of the Hood County GOP, at a town hall earlier this year. “Data centers are taking advantage of it… They saw an opportunity.”

“Texas is a great state to do business. All of that really has come together to help make Texas, again, one of the national leaders in digital infrastructure,” said Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy with the Data Center Coalition.

--

Instead of green, about 600 yards away from their garden, they could soon be looking at 2,100 acres of warehouse-like structures filled with computing servers that process the digital world, flattening their scenic view into something industrial. The site plan calls for a campus that spans almost six times the size of University of Texas at Austin’s main campus. Its Florida-based developer refers to it as the Comanche Circle project, but the eventual company that will run the data center has not been publicly revealed.

This is just the beginning of the data center revolution in Hood County, a rural community of 62,000 people about an hour southwest of Fort Worth. Developers have proposed eight data centers spanning over 7,600 acres, or 12 square miles. While it’s unclear how much power all of the facilities would require, the Comanche Circle data center, plus two other smaller projects from the same developer, could use up to 3 gigawatts of electricity at full capacity, according to its developer — enough to power about 3 million homes. Some of the power could be generated by a new on-site gas plant, and some will likely come from the state’s power grid, according to the project’s concept plan.

Massive data centers are also flooding the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s main grid operator, with requests for power. As of May, ERCOT reported that large projects requesting to connect to the grid totaled 439 gigawatts of power capacity — five times larger than the all-time peak demand on the state’s grid. Of those projects, about 89% are data centers, though energy experts say it’s unlikely that all of them will be built.

TL;DR, but good article

Click to expand...

essentialsaltes said:

Massive data centers are also flooding the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s main grid operator, with requests for power. As of May, ERCOT reported that large projects requesting to connect to the grid totaled 439 gigawatts of power capacity — five times larger than the all-time peak demand on the state’s grid. Of those projects, about 89% are data centers, though energy experts say it’s unlikely that all of them will be built.

Click to expand...

Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests​

Ohio’s biggest data centers secured decades of tax breaks​

Landon Caeli said:

Elon Musk has reached "1st trillionaire" status, based partially on his ambitious goals of shooting computer data centers into space, which would eventually serve a human colony on mars.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/06/11/elon-musk-is-worlds-first-trillionaire-paper-thanks-spacex-ipo/

Click to expand...

Landon Caeli said:

You underestimate humanity's restlessness for Sehnsucht, especially in regards to our interests in space exploration. The inner feelings involved in that, tend to remind us that possibilities may have no limits - and that good feeling is what draws us closer to it.

Click to expand...

Landon Caeli said:

It's interesting, that data centers in space could actually generate electricity using solar arrays...

Click to expand...

Landon Caeli said:

It's almost as if our inventions are always a precursor to what comes next. As if one thing leading to the next aligned intentionally somehow... This is evolution, fast tracked... Where we once evolved limbs and left the water, we now have been given the gift of intellect.

Click to expand...