"I keep coming back to this graph because it’s so eye-popping, almost impossible to believe. As you see in the legend, the blue line is data centers. The grey line is everything else. Everything else. Commercial properties. Rental properties. Single family homes. Multiple family homes. Pick your preferred flavor of development, NIMBY, YIMBY, urban, rural, it’s in there. You basically have rapid data center growth and everything else contracting."
3 Boosts
0 Likes
@jalefkowit yes, but the graph doesn't show the actual numbers. Is that information also available?
@jalefkowit I find it unhelpful that we aren't told or shown what the baseline spends in 2024 were: if all other private construction spend was much larger than data centre spend in 2024 it would seem much less worrying, albeit there's quite a big aggregate drop in the sector since 2024.
@jalefkowit
I hope data center buildings will be fit for future habitation. I expect that eventually, data center usage will drop, like that of indoor shopping malls. Malls are now being repurposed as residences and other uses. I hope the same happens with data centers.
I do fear that some great, powerful, unfeeling entity is going roll over us, our neighbors and civilization and grind it into dust.
AI?! That's laughable. The problem is the same as it's been for the last half-century. It's the corporations run by fools that are willing to sacrifice the world on burning pyre of excess so long as they can keep themselves convinced that through some miracle they will be in a position to rule over the ashes.
@jalefkowit Growing a lot of tulips here I see.
Now let's ask ourselves why oil oligarchs developed a sudden taste for a huge data center construction overbuild ...
Too many dollars chasing too few assets; a recipe for "profitable" global financial crises
Pump & Dumps
https://www.desmog.com/2025/12/11/the-koch-network-is-pushing-trump-to-accelerate-ai-documents-show/
https://fortune.com/2026/10/14/exclusive-koch-venture-emanate-a16z-industrial-ai/
https://therealdeal.com/national/2026/07/30/koch-receiving-bids-for-potential-15b-data-center-sale/
Subsidies
https://goodjobsfirst.org/koch-rides-the-data-center-boom/
Money laundering
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-06/saudis-plan-100-billion-ai-powerhouse-to-rival-uae-s-tech-hub
Corruption
https://newrepublic.com/article/216376/midterms-data-centers-trump-diesel-ice-corruption
@jalefkowit I don't know what to make of this. I just hope those data centers are never profitable.
@jalefkowit chat are we cooked?
But seriously that's absolutely jaw dropping and terrifying
@jalefkowit A lot of people would consider this a misallocation of capital
@jalefkowit reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkers_in_Albania "The bunkerisation programme was a massive drain on Albania's weak economy. [...] The programme diverted resources away from other forms of development, such as roads and residential buildings. On average, they are said to have each cost the equivalent of a two-room apartment and the resources used to build them could easily have resolved Albania's chronic shortage of housing."
@jalefkowit (the similarity in fact extends to how criticism of either bunkers or data centers will lead to the government accusing you of being an agent of the chinese government, lol)
@jalefkowit that seems really bad. seems like the only thing there's demand for is data centers and that demand is PHONY
@jalefkowit JFC, that graph is economically terrifying.
Starting a new political party on the platform "Homes For People Before Homes For GPUs"
Yous before GPUs!
@jalefkowit what about a party for gamers, a home and a gpu for every player
@jalefkowit As a civilization we appear to have picked machines over humanity.
@jalefkowit isthatgood.png
@SnoopJ If your money is in data centers, sure 😆
@jalefkowit @SnoopJ even this remains to be seen
@jalefkowit
We destroy AI because we want to.
Murderers build AI because they want to.