Manjeet Rege, a professor in the Department of Software Engineering and Data Science at the University of St. Thomas, spoke with FOX 9 about how the rapid growth of artificial intelligence is fueling demand for large-scale data centers. Rege discussed concerns surrounding energy use, water consumption, and long-term infrastructure impacts, while noting that clearer policies and greater transparency could help communities better evaluate proposed projects.
From the conversation:
Rege: One has to understand that these data centers consume a lot of resources. So all of these thousands of servers generate a lot of heat, and many of them, many of these data centers are also water cooled, so they consume millions of gallons of water. Secondly, also there could be impacts on your utility bill, so your electricity bill can go up as well.
So many times, these projects are also announced under a code name, and residents have no idea about who’s behind it and what the impact would be eventually. And suddenly, it is announced that maybe Google or Meta is behind it.
So there is also controversy surrounding that, that is the residents do not have an idea about the impact it is going to have today, as well as 10 years down the line, when the power grid needs upgrading, and who’s going to pay for it.
Courtney Godfrey: And supporters of this would say, well, but these data centers will bring jobs to your area. They will fuel the tax base. So there is an argument to be made for them as well.
Rege: Right. So there is an upside to having data centers. One is that it brings revenue in when you open up a data center. Let me talk about the jobs first. You know, there is this misconception that a data center brings long-term, permanent jobs. A data center is a large, gigantic, windowless building housing thousands of servers. So when that data center is getting constructed, there could be construction-related HVAC and civil engineering-related jobs. But once the data center is already in place, you will have fewer, maybe like 100 IT infrastructure-related jobs, but not thousands of jobs on a long-term basis. But it does bring an influx of funds into that local community, which could then be utilized for other purposes, such as in school districts, for example.
Godfrey: I mean, so many people are against these data centers going in, but I also don’t see our lifestyle changing. If we don’t change our lifestyle and we don’t build the data centers, what happens?
Rege: What happens is that we will not be able to serve that demand. So every time you make a request online, you go to ChatGPT, it goes to a regional data center. So if you don’t have that regional capacity, it will go to a far-off data center. There could be slowness in response times, and eventually consumers will not be happy as well.
