this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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Data centers are creating ‘heat islands’ and warming the land around them by up to 16 degrees | CNN (www.cnn.com)
submitted 19 hours ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The vast data centers that power artificial intelligence are so energy hungry that they’re heating up their surroundings, according to new research. It’s an alarming finding given the number of data centers is predicted to explode over the next few years.

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[–] filcuk@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Sorry to nitpick but doesn't 100% of it end up as heat? Vibrations, light, sounds, radio waves- all a tiny fraction of the power are also eventually absorbed by the environment.
That was my understanding at least

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 minutes ago

My understanding is that some tiny portion, like 1-2%, is actually used in a meaningful way to do calculations to do what you want, but that could incorrect. Or it may be that that tiny portion still inevitably turns to heat, just indirectly somehow. I'm not sure, though, you could be right.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Yeah but will that happen in the 6M radius that we are talking about?

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 1 points 56 seconds ago

No, it'll all happen inside the data center. The problem with that is computers hate all that heat, so they pipe it all away and dump it outside to the best of their ability. The data center may not be 6 miles wide, but then the wind starts blowing the heat around. Hell, even on a perfectly still day, heat would radiate out. It's either that, or the data center turns into the world's largest oven.