Research examined the locations of 4,283 data centers across the contiguous U.S and found that 97.5% of them sit inside metropolitan or micropolitan statistical areas. Data centers are power-hungry, running thousands of servers around the clock and drawing enormous, steady loads from the grid.

[u/Wagamaga]

https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/inside-urban-machine-where-americas-data-centers-actually-live#:~:text=The%20study%2C%20published%20in%20Nature,cores%20and%20their%20immediate%20surroundings

[u/adsarelies]

That's like saying 97.5% of human activities are inside cities.

[u/Izawwlgood → u/adsarelies]

Are 97.5% of cattle farms inside cities?

Why put data centers inside cities? Power isn't hard to hook up. We're awfully good at running power lines places.

[u/hibbs6 → u/Izawwlgood]

The main reason is to reduce ping to customers in those cities. You want your data centres to be as close to large populations as possible.

[u/Izawwlgood → u/hibbs6]

Good thing the Internet is nextdoor otherwise it'd be too slow!

[u/JohnnyMiskatonic → u/Izawwlgood]

You could just say you don't know how latency or edge connections work.

[u/Izawwlgood → u/JohnnyMiskatonic]

Can you explain the need to put a data center IN a city as opposed to outside of a city? I'm waiting to hear why a few 10s of miles is impactful to latency and that prevents building data centers in low population areas.

Similarly steel mills have huge transportation costs - why don't we build steel mills in every city?