alt Hacker NewsI don't get the economics behind building AI DCs in the UK instead of a middle income country near the equator where there's plentiful solar or fossil fuels.
Labor and land is expensive, energy is scarce and expensive, and colocation is not that valuable because latency is dominated by compute instead of transmission.
But there must be a good reason I am missing.
Replies
khy34 • today at 12:49 PM
Country risk..
vee-kay • today at 12:48 PM
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Huh, you think the equator is better for datacenters? I've never heard that.
I mean, there's a reason Luleå is a popular datacenter spot: access to hydro & wind- but also "free cooling"; datacenters create a lot of heat and having a cold environment makes it easier to maintain ambient temperatures that are sustainable with lower energy consumption.
Additionally, people tend to prefer their servers are in geopolitically stable countries that are less likely to be bombed or undergo civil war (and the US likes to ensure civil war in countries that have a lot of oil) - and you want your datacenters to avoid any environmental hazards like earthquakes.
I can't imagine preferring the equator for datacenters.