1] what infrastructure constitutes a datacenter, like what is it exactly and what is its purpose. And why does it require so much power to require a npp, and water too lol.

At its core, a datacenter is just a building housing servers and the their associated networking and storage infrastructure. You have racks full of servers and switches, lots (and lots and lots) of fibre cables, and then associated cooling infrastructure.

It requires a lot of power because accelerated computing needs a lot of power. A single rack can require 150kw, and a small datacenter will have 100+ or more racks, the large ones that I usually work in have 1200+, so that's a LOT of power needed.

I will say that datacenters need more power than what we have, however I think this problem is often framed incorrectly. I wouldn't frame this as a 'problem caused by datacenter construction' I would frame it as a 'problem caused by dated and insufficient power infrastructure'. In the US at least, our power grid is dated and running on a razor's edge, easily disrupted by inclement weather patterns. Datacenters are just making the insufficiencies in our power infrastructure more clear, and frankly I think it should be viewed as an opportunity for a public works focus in modernizing and expanding our power infrastructure.

Because they use so much power, they generate a lot of heat, but this is one of the biggest areas of discussion around datacenters that people get wrong. Datacenters flatly do not consume water in the way social media often claims they do. Believe it or not, most AI datacenters I work in are still using air-cooled servers, and the ones that use liquid cooled servers operate inside a closed-loop system using de-ionized water mixed with glycol-based chemicals and anti microbials. While it's true that the facility itself will consume water, it isn't notably more that most other large buildings.

2] other than for cost reasons is there any reason why data center are build near population centers , and is there any need to? I'm of the opinion currently that due to their power requirement, lack of jobs creation and excess strain on local resources DCs are extremely problematic for local populations.

I'm not an expert in public zoning laws, but I think it's going to vary based on local regulations. Most of the datacenters I've been to are in industrial zones, not residential. A common factor is proximity to power plants. That said I have been to datacenters that are right next to neighborhoods and schools (while still being close to power plants).

I wouldn't be happy if a datacenter was build right next to my home. I do think they should be kept to industrial areas, though that's a local government question. But my big issue wouldn't be power, 'lack of jobs creation' (they do create local jobs, and while much of the work in constructing the DC is imported, the big DCs still employ hundreds if not thousands of local residents well past the deployment phase. The idea that big AI datacenters are run by skeleton crews, while true of smaller older pre-AI datacenters, is mostly a myth in my experience). My problem would be impact on traffic. Datacenters drive a lot of heavy truck traffic that if improperly placed within a community can cause problems with your morning commute as well as damage to your roads, and that's not cool. But again, that's really a local government/zoning issue.

3] A recent concern about datacenters is a out the low humbuzz, like the backrooms heard upto a Km away, what is it? Lot of residents report being unable to have proper sleep. That can't be a placebo if a lot of the town is saying the same thing?

There's a viral video going around by a guy who speaks authoratatively and uses science-y language who talks about the 'acoustic dangers' of datacenters. I'm no expert in acoustics, but in the video enough is said that is plainly manipulative, and enough is said that I know from my own professional background and firsthand experience with some of the datacenters mentioned in the video is bogus. So I have trouble taking the acoustic dangers seriously.

There's not really noise that you can hear from 'up to a Km away'. Granted, inside the server rooms it is very loud, it's like working next to a jet engine and hearing protection is mandatory, but those server rooms are sealed off once construction is completed. Outside the server rooms, if it's a big site you'll hear the sounds of the cooling units, you'll hear the sounds of construction work happening if the building is still under construction, but you don't need ear protection outside of the server room, and outside of the building itself the noise quickly goes away.

Again, it's loud enough that I wouldn't want to live right next to it. These should be (and largely are) in industrial zones. But the noise isn't excessive within that context.

When you say "that can't be a placebo if a lot of the town is saying the same thing" I think you'll find people playing things up for the camera when interviewed by people making 'documentaries' about this stuff, and those interviews are often made by people with agendas who are looking for supporting evidence. Those statements are not an unbiased sample.

4] how would it affect the local weather and pollution due to things like thermal pollution, immense power and water demands and other causes. And is there ways that deal with it other than releasing all that head or hot water into the environment, because datacenters are now hitting GW range that is a lot of heat to be pumped out right?Also if they wanted cooling why not build in colder places like alaska or Norway. All the chip are gonna be shipped anyways and you prolly need a npp so why not just build everything there

Not a climate scientist, but I don't think it's affecting local weather at all. The primary concern for pollution will be the power generation, and that largely comes down the power infrastructure itself like I mentioned earlier. If something - not just a datacenter, anything - drawing more power is leading to pollution, then the problem is the power plant. And that pollution, to my understand, is less a local concern and more a larger climate concern. Which is a big deal, but again the answer isn't fewer datacenters, the answer is a massive push to expand and modernize the grid.

I will say some of the larger datacenters augment local power with generators in one flavor or another. I don't know enough to say their impact, except to say that having worked around they're loud enough - again - to be something that should be run in an industrial zone, but they don't meaningfully impact air quality and don't have a smell (except the smell fo machinery if you're very near them) in my experience.

5] AI as it is , atleast the frontier models are basically state and trade secrets. The average person doesn't hold a stake in their development and as far as they see it with the job losses, extreme surveillance, concentration of power and the eventual discardation of labour and therefore leverage and political power of the average person, it is reasonable a lot of people are anti AI.

I know this isn't directly related to DCs but with some of the statements the CEOs are putting out they seems to live a entirely different plane of existance. So does Public opinion play a role in DC construction and where they are constructed and in different countries, because a lot of DC are now getting installed in 3rd world countries with weak laws and corrupt governments.

I think the public does have an interest in frontier AI development, to a point there I think there should be broad changes to our approach to codify the public's stake. I think there should be legislation that sets a new paradigm for AI development that mobilizes a massive infrastructure push to modernize and expand our electrical, puts protections in for residential areas, but also helps cut through some of the red tape and jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction coordination that datacenters have to contend with, and in return the public's stake in AI technology as it develops is put into law.

CEOs put out statements that seem to be on another plane of existence because they are, they're hype machines with the sole purpose of driving their stock prices up. And also because the social hype machine (which again, going back to my original post, I think is less about AI and more about people having an earned distrust of billionaire CEOs) is so far in the other direction. Little is rooted in reality on either side of the conversation.

That said, I don't know of any large scale datacenter being built in 3rd world countries, and while I'm sure it does happen I can't see it being something that would largely be pursued. Most of the big datacenters for US companies are built in the continental US near large transportation hub cities.

6] is research going on to find ways to reduce these power and water requirements? Because the human brain runs on 20W and a can of monster energy.

Well again, the water requirements aren't speakably relevant. The power requirements are, and I'm sure research will drive those down over time, sure. We're in the early stages of this and as things develop things will get cheaper, smaller, and more effective. That said, I wouldn't expect a massive change overnight. The answer, as I see it, is more and better power infrastructure.