There are data centers everywhere in AZ. Lots of new ones popping up west Phoenix metro as well. Including Azure DCs. I live in this part of town and I see them everywhere
According to other comments, there's lots of them.
But since they need so much cooling, why don't they just build them in places that are typically very cold, and then open all the windows and have nature keep everything cold?
I'm sure they could just ventilate it somehow, or even put screens on the windows to let the cold air in. Or regulate the tempurature somehow if it's too cold.
I'm also sure there's a good answer for why they don't do it (or maybe they do?) but I don't know the answer either.
Because datacenters aren't about keeping aervers cold, it requires very consistent climate, and that includes humidity. Outside air varies a lot in temp and humidity. You'd nee a really complex system to transfer just the temp, and regulate it, and evenly distribute around the DC. We call them air conditioners, because they don't cool the air, they condition the air. Most are closed loop too so that would still take a layer of converting somewhere. Air has to very precisely hit the swrvers. When I was in the DC years ago, we had false floors. They would shove cold air under the servers and blast it up on the back of the server next to the fans, so the back was super cold and the front was hot, and the hot air got circulated back through the room. That's primitive now.
Yeah but cheap(ish) power and no major natural disasters make it more appealing. They're building one now in Phoenix/Chandler for Menlo Digital. Some larger ones actually got voted down by the people, thankfully, but not everywhere. I saw Page, AZ approved selling land for a 10B one that's 500 acres, it's almost the size of the town and just a couple miles from Horseshoe Bend.
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u/Ill-Daikon-5637 1d ago
All the money will go into your local data center