We all hear the economy is being helped along with the building of data centers, which is a good thing for the overall economy. Most of us in the urban areas, will not see the data centers because they are typically built in rural areas. The land is less expensive, the taxes are less and electrical plants are located in the area. This is good for the company, but what about the consequences?

In an article by Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times News Service, Amazon is building a data center in Pecos County, Texas which is located on the western side of the state northwest of San Antonio. In addition to building a data center, Amazon is investing in a large-scale natural-gas power plant. Although there are many pollution reductions on power plants, if built this plant would be the large single source of climate pollution in the US.

Artificial Intelligence data centers require immense amounts of energy to run the trillions of calculations needed to create AI systems and services. And the scale and urgency of their energy demands is fast exhausting the electricity-generating capacity of the nation’s power grid.

The best solution for the AI companies is to build a power generating plant nearby as a dedicated, on-site power plant.

President Trump promotes the use of oil and gas and coal to power the power plants, and the President made it to build and operate data centers. Federal agencies have fast tracked their construction.

Amazon’s plant would use 35 natural-gas turbines to generate up to 7.65 gigawatts of power to feed the data center. The plant is in remote part of West Texas and is reasonably close to natural gas fields.

If you have seen pictures of West Texas or been there, the construction jobs would be very welcomed. Different concerns about after having the data center constructed the number of jobs falls drastically and although the tax revenues would make a difference, the data center would need infrastructure improvements to be built. In addition, how the data center is cooled remains a concern in a part of the state with limited rainfall.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, there is always a tradeoff between the greater good and the best solution. The greater good says to compete in the future, data centers are needed and building them is a very good thing. The best solution says there will be some consequences, some are readily seen, some are unforeseen, but we need the data centers.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.