A local technology expert cites the massive demand for artificial intelligence as the driving force behind the construction of large-scale data centers across the nation, including Warren County.
Residents spoke for some 90 minutes last week, speaking against the center. Vol State Dean of Technology Kevin Blankenship said these facilities consist of vast collections of servers and chipsets designed to handle complex tasks like large language models and image generation.
“We see the news articles every day for the number of companies that are laying people off and replacing them with AI tasks,” Blankenship said. “It’s being implemented from small business all the way up through large corporations. So to feed that demand, data centers are growing basically almost at an exponential rate.”
Blankenship said the physical presence of data centers can impact local environments through increased water usage and the elevation of ambient temperatures in the surrounding area. Blankenship said the significant noise generated by these facilities is a byproduct of the intensive cooling systems required to prevent thousands of chipsets from overheating during heavy processing.
“If you’ve ever heard your laptop or a desktop start to do some heavy processing and the fans kick on and it gets louder, well, multiply that times 10,000 or 100,000 depending on the size of the data center,” Blankenship said.
Blankenship said companies are increasingly looking toward rural areas for construction to minimize the impact on densely populated residential zones. Blankenship said future developments will likely require environmental studies similar to those performed for manufacturing plants to address potential emissions or groundwater concerns.
“I think there’s going to have to be a balance struck as with anything,” Blankenship said. “This is a brand new thing, it’s no different than any other like the Industrial Revolution when you started seeing assembly lines and that sort of thing. There’s going to have to be a balance struck between concern of where people live, and that has to balance out with the demand for AI.”
Blankenship said the current energy infrastructure may not be sufficient to sustain the long-term power requirements of the AI industry. Blankenship said the U.S. will likely need to investigate nuclear energy and other alternative power supplies to balance the increasing electrical demand.
During college graduation season, many commencement speeches went viral, as university presidents were boo’d by their student bodies for praising the AI revolution. Blankenship said he understood why college students might respond in that way.
“I think the younger generation… probably see this kind of a false promise that they were going to get a degree and be able to get a job and unfortunately the time period that they’re graduating in we’re seeing this revolution going on and everything is still sifting out so no one’s quite sure where they’re going to land,” Blankenship said.
Blankenship said a disconnect exists in public perception because many people who oppose the construction of local data centers still utilize AI on social media platforms. Blankenship said education is necessary to help the public understand how the technology is integrated into daily operations and to establish guardrails for its growth.
“The people that are complaining about it are contributing to the problem,” Blankenship said. “I think awareness of what AI is and how it’s being used is and education around it because it’s become a scary buzzword.”
