These “makeshift” structures are housing hardware that costs millions of dollars in total.
“Putting AI servers inside tents, officially called “rapid deployment structures,” is one of the more unique approaches to the AI build-out, Thomas said. They’re certainly not as sturdy as physical buildings made from steel and concrete, with one commenter comparing it to the “classic $10k racing bike with a $9 lock” situation.”
So, I hear there’s a bunch of unused office space due to work-from-home, is it really lacking that much power?
Yes… and the ability to deal with super densely packed rack weight.
Like seriously, they can’t use existing empty data center space because the floors aren’t built to deal with ones that tightly packed of equipment.
But tents work?
I’d assume the density is much lower here. They don’t have to resort to cramming as much together since they can just throw up another tent. They’re also likely putting them right on the ground instead of worrying about the Nice raised floors for permanent cabling and other niceties.
I’m just wondering how they deal with cooling.
Can you imagine what a hellish environment this would be to work in? And what are the odds that they are cooling the interior of the tents to anything that is not hellishly hot?
So… if using office space for data centers, they just need to lower the server density until it’s compatible with the unused office space’s capacity… like our old unused K-Marts and grocery stores become halloween haunted houses…
That office space is in cities that won’t let them steal all the water and power and then dump pollution into the water supply.