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ckozlowskitoday at 12:45 AM3 repliesview on HN

I wrote this in another reply here, but from this article and others I've read on Space X's/Tesla's datacenters, it's the use of turbine generators that cause that enormous whine sound. (Note how similar it is to a jet engine.) I live in Ashburn, where we have datacenters all over the place. But none of them sound like this. At worst, we get a dull hum, much lower in volume, if the air handlers are working especially hard. But you need to be on top of them to hear that.

Ashburn has the infrastructure however. From what I'm reading, other places don't. So they bring in power on-site, and it seems to be much less regulated.


Replies

footatoday at 1:52 AM

Perhaps an un-fun fun fact if you're living near one of these, but Boom aerospace has pivoted to start selling turbines for data centers in addition to its normal business.

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KennyBlankentoday at 1:56 AM

There are no turbine generators at the DC in the video and that's not what gas turbine power plants sound like. they're much higher pitched.

But yeah, the ones with the turbine generators are even louder and more shrill. The xAI DC in Memphis last year had thirty five portable gas turbine generators.

Schiendelmantoday at 1:05 AM

Usually I think they're trying to get the infrastructure, but because we've created a permitting nightmare across the US, they can't get the permits for anything they want, so they're stuck with mobile generation that doesn't require much permitting.

Edit: I don't think it SHOULD be this way, but downvoting me doesn't change that, only organizing for changes does.

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