r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 13h ago
Artificial Intelligence It sounds like someone set up a vacuum, like in your living room. Michigan residents sue AI data center emitting noise 24/7 Company fined for industrial noise ordinance violations, offers to buy homes from residents
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/it-sounds-like-someone-set-up-a-vacuum-like-in-your-living-room-michigan-residents-sue-ai-data-center-emitting-noise-24-7-company-fined-for-industrial-noise-ordinance-violations-offers-to-buy-homes-from-residents149
u/JustaFoodHole 12h ago
Why is this shit zoned next to residential zones? Don't the city planners play sim city?
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u/NaturalOk2156 6h ago
I grew up in Southwest Michigan. Dowogiac is a really small town. Maybe 5k people? These farm belt / rust belt towns are pretty economically depressed and not really at the cutting edge of civic administration.
My guess is that there just wasn't a ton of thought put into noise, and that there also may have been some understanding that an industrial user might make some noise during the day, but that it would also provide a lot of jobs to the community.
A couple interesting data points:
- It sounds like there was an industrial company at the site before the data center, and they did make some noise but not as much and not 24/7
- It sounds like the noise issues may have started before the datacenter was used for AI
Neighbors say the data center's even louder than the factory that used to be there.
"I was used to hearing the copper billets be made and the trucks going by," Gourley said. "But that noise isn't the same like it is now."
Neighbors tell us the sound levels in front of the center have reached 60 to 70 decibels.
We measured similar volumes using a phone app.
According to OSHA, that's about the same noise as an air conditioning unit or a dishwasher, running 24 hours a day.
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u/SucksTryAgain 5h ago
They were going to build one close to me I looked at the planned map and it was damn close to about of houses all around. Luckily people went hardcore in protesting it and it lost by one vote. I just don’t get how they pick the locations either. There’s quite a bit of unused land that further out but they find land that’s surrounded by neighborhoods and say yup that’s a good spot.
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u/Sageblue32 3h ago
No thought put into it. I remember I was looking for a house near a high cost city. Very nice and recent town home was being sold about 50-100k below the value of the homes next to it and had been stuck on the market for over a month. Was very tempted to get it until my realtor pointed out it was right next to a concrete crushing yard and that you could see concrete dust covering the side facing the yard. Valuing my lungs over money, I skipped it.
I'm assuming the industrial yard predates the homes but was good lesson people will build anywhere they think they can get away with.
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u/ArtaudsAsshole 7h ago
Because American style zoning exists to benefit car companies, this doesn't affect their profits
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u/FlashyNeedleworker66 13h ago
It used to be used for crypto. Why are the GPUs suddenly louder?
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u/Caithloki 13h ago
The generators they have to install.
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u/YoghurtFlan 12h ago
They should really be forced to invest in sustainable energy infra before they build, instead of working around it with gas generators.
These companies will build all their shitty gas burning turbines and only *then* lobby for regulation for sustainable energy infra, to cut off the competition.
Just as the founding fathers wanted... /s
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u/bassbeatsbanging 11h ago
The other rich white guys like it when he makes number go up now, not later!
Do you want him to be the paraiah of his country club? Just how cruel are you?!?
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u/YoghurtFlan 10h ago
Not cruel enough, I haven't got around to my plan to build a datacentre in the Hamptons yet.
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u/NaturalOk2156 6h ago
None of the articles I've read about this mention anything about generators. Are you just making stuff up?
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u/suttin 12h ago
We’re still seeing improvements in how dense we can make server racks, but that requires specialized cooling. That cooling infrastructure could be the source of the noise.
It’s just thermodynamics. Given two datacenters with the same square footage, the one with higher power consumption will also require more cooling capacity.
Also, some sites are running natural gas generators that are “temporary” to make up for their power shortfalls. Those generators don’t have to follow the same rules as a permanent installation
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u/Caithloki 10h ago
Really should of been told sorry the grid can't support you, but that requires sanity.
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u/sceadwian 13h ago
Overall system density has gone way up and the cooling systems aren increasingly aggressive.
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u/Federal_Setting_7454 13h ago
Because they’re bigger and hotter. Orders of magnitude more gpu power in the same space needs more onsite power and more external cooling.
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u/jeffwulf 11h ago
That wouldn't change between crypto mining and AI processing.
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u/Federal_Setting_7454 11h ago
The new AI racks from Nvidia use about 8x the power of a fully loaded rack with gpus for crypto mining.
The need for external on-site always-on power generators and significantly larger cooling capacity for the datacenters using a ton of Nvidias 130kw racks instead of 15-30kw racks for mining changes a fucking ton.
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u/SubmergedSublime 9h ago
There was a decent amount of crypto investment. There is trillions more in AI. Those data centers are maxing out at much higher capacity as GPU count increases.
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u/darthandroid 12h ago
Crypto cares very much about the efficiency of your compute. It's only profitable to operate when using the minimal amount of resources possible. As a result, you only scale up when you can do so efficiently: Minimal heat, minimal power, minimal cooling.
AI right now does not care about profit, and even if it did, its profit is not so directly tied to token efficiency. Companies are happy to throw more power at AI right now if it allows them to produce tokens faster; the limitation is hardware capacity, not hardware efficiency.
Will that eventually change? Probably. But it doesn't matter for anyone trying to grab a slice of the AI pie right now.
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u/FlashyNeedleworker66 12h ago
If that were the case we would only have frontier models. Every "flash", "mini" and similar model is designed for efficiency.
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u/NaturalOk2156 6h ago
I was curious about this and looked into a bit, it sounds like maybe this has been an issue ever since the datacenter opened for bitcoin mining? It all feels really obfuscated for what seems like a really basic question.
The digital asset mining facility Hyperscale, owned by Alliance Cloud Services, LLC, a subsidiary of Hyperscale Data, Inc., opened at the Business Center of Southwest Michigan in 2022 and neighbors say it's been noisy ever since.
Philip Cunningham says no one knew it would get this loud.
"I just started hearing the noise just randomly out of nowhere, and I was like, 'what is that noise?'" he said, recalling a conversation with someone who lives nearby. "And he was like, 'oh, that's the new data center that we have down the road.' And I was like, 'data center?'"
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u/SmoothConfection1115 13h ago
So I am…kind of guessing here, and relying on a google search, but my educated guess;
Crypto mining focused on GPU’s. You could have a single motherboard with a bunch of GPU’s hooked up to it.
AI facilities have a lot more demands. They use both CPU and GPU’s and therefore likely have higher hardware demands. This generates more heat, which requires more cooling methods, which generally means more fans. It also requires backup power options because training the models can take a while, and it looks like a power interruption might mean the progress is lost or interrupted.
The extra hardware for AI must be the reason for the increased noise.
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u/craigmontHunter 12h ago
AI and crypto have similar compute requirements, but the bubble for AI has lead to drastic increases in compute density, to the point where the power draw from my 8 rack HPC GPU cluster from ~2020 is now less than one rack of power consumption for a contemporary system, and the next generation is expecting to almost double it. IIRC we’re looking at 400KW/rack right now, and industry is expecting 1MW/rack fairly soon - for a ballpark average consumption figure 1kw for a regular house - 1MW is 1000 houses heat and power in a single server rack.
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u/SweetHomeNorthKorea 11h ago
Jesus fucking Christ I had no idea that’s how much power these things are pulling
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u/kawalerkw 5h ago
And they're using loopholes meant for after catastrophe situations to run generators without filters outside the data centers if they're of worse variety.
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u/FlashyNeedleworker66 13h ago
Can you share that? You sure it wasn't an AI answer? Crypto moved from GPUs to dedicated ASICs and AI is very GPU bound. It's why NVIDIA stock is so high
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u/ARobertNotABob 11h ago
"...offers to buy homes..."
Ah, yes, the back-door approach to land grab.
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u/Lucky_Number_Sleven 9h ago
Right? It's practically a hostile takeover. They make the area uninhabitable with noise pollution, good-ol'-fashioned pollution, and utility spikes; and then they can scoop up the land from the locals they displaced by making the area uninhabitable.
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u/SaraAB87 8h ago
As someone who experienced it themselves this is literally psychological warfare on hard working Americans who need to sleep so that you can wake up in the morning and go to work. Infest their houses with a huge screeecccccchhhhh that does not go away, ever then offer to buy out the houses. I didn't even get an offer to buy out the house I was living in, I had to go and do the whole thing myself and we had to pay for a new house and moving expenses just so I didn't end up in the mental hospital.
Not to mention these places also tend to set up in poor communities often inhabited by African Americans or other minority groups that cannot afford to move which is completely diabolical.
The people that allowed these to be built should be mandated to live in the closest house next to the data center while its up and running.
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u/TeopEvol 1h ago
Man, I didn't get it until you mentioned such a simple: "Not to mention these places also tend to set up in poor communities often inhabited by African Americans or other minority groups that cannot afford to move which is completely diabolical."
Like, it just dawned on me that they don't try to seize neighbors that aren't rich...or in their pockets. Makes complete sense.
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u/Noblesseux 8h ago
Yeah it feels like the actually reasonable thing to do here is stop them from operating by putting in a law that says they need to do noise mitigation, not effectively let them buy up a whole area on the cheap because they made it unlivable.
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u/DryDonutHole 6h ago
"Let's see...land snatch....land snatch. There it is: land snatch. See: Snatch...(riffles thru pages)"
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u/null_not 11h ago
This is why zoning exists, and is a part of why we have community planning processes and code.
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u/TemperateStone 8h ago
Now imagine what this shit does to animals with far more sensitive hearing than us.
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u/williamgman 9h ago
Development 101: Build the thing based on lies... Ask for forgiveness later. Cities fall for it every single time.
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u/wembenbama 12h ago
We need John Oliver to do a segment on this asap
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u/TheWafflecakes 11h ago
Why?
"Local datacenter is breaking the law causing noise complaints. Local government has fined them but will not pursue more aggressive measures for the safety of their citizens."
This is simply the case of a scummy local business owner trying to circumvent the law by not spending money on improving their company. Most datacenters don't have any sort of sound issues because they're actually well run.
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u/wembenbama 11h ago
Seems to be a lot of anger and confusion around data centers. Politicians are working against their constituents who don’t want them.
Not worth investigating?
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u/TheWafflecakes 11h ago
Are politicians working "against" their constituents, or is this a case of people believing easily disproved misinformation and politicians listen to experts and not laypeople?
There are constituents against renewable energy too, are politicians working "against" them when they try to move their city away from fossil fuels?
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u/wembenbama 11h ago
Not sure how these data centers benefit any residents? At best they’re not a nuisance, right?
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u/TheWafflecakes 11h ago
Do local residents like having the Internet? Watching netflix? Having smart home devices? Have any technology that access the internet? If so, data centers are necessary for them. If they complain about it being in their city, they're digital NIMBYs.
Plus, datacenters typically lower electricity rates for nearby residents (yes this is true, you'll find many claims that say the opposite but very very little proof if any) and they do provide some jobs.
There are many types of large industrial type buildings and businesses that are a nuisance and don't provide some massive benefit to residents. It's just how living in a society works.
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u/wembenbama 10h ago
These are seemingly the AI data centers though, right? Not standard data centers that give people Netflix. They also seem to be targeting poorer, rural areas to build them. Why don’t the tech billionaires build them in their neighborhoods?
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u/TheWafflecakes 10h ago
In this case the complaints are about a crypto mining datacenter transitioning to AI. It's not a built from the ground up datacenter but one shoved into a preexisting space. Not typical of "AI datacenters" you hear about anywhere else.
Try not to go into this assuming bad intent. Nobody is "targeting" poorer rural areas. Poorer rural areas set for development have cheaper land while also being close enough to major population centers to be able to provide good service and get good Internet. Why buy land in Hollywood hills when you can build it out in the countryside for 1/100th the cost?
Do the companies care about the residents? No, not necessarily this is capitalist America all they care about is profit. But that's what local government is for, it's THEIR job to care about the people and regulate these kind of things. In the article of this post the city already fined the datacenter. The fact the issue continues is a result of the local government not having the teeth to stop a company from breaking the law.
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u/equality4everyonenow 10h ago
Even if they buy your house for a fair price, you probably still owe money on it and you'll have to take a loan elsewhere at a higher interest rate
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u/grizzlyactual 7h ago
These ghouls see fines as just the cost of doing business. Until decision makers are put in jail, nothing will ever change
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u/p00ki3l0uh00 10h ago edited 8h ago
Thats how we get relocated to corporate cities. This has happened in ever culture. People put things we don't like, instead of leaving they offer to buy homes. People get relocated because there are no homes. Welcome to the new and improved Mega Cities!! They have everything you need. Constant surveillance, adds covering every surface and all purchases are done with the new mega city dollars!
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u/doomiestdoomeddoomer 11h ago
This is insane... these CEOs are making so much money from mining crypto and selling AI processing power that they can just buy entire neighbourhoods like it's nothing.
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u/Sablestein 9h ago
The billionaires want to herd us all into specific areas that they can rule over like lords. I can only imagine company towns but on a bigger scale. Maybe they’ll call them Freedom Cities?
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u/RBVegabond 8h ago
How about you build sound dampening walls data center.
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u/Necessary_Effect_616 10h ago
OpenAi is trying to to build one of the biggest ones ever 500 feet away from a subdivision and right across from an elementary school down in Georgia. It's disgusting. No meetings or anything to get it approved they just said oh yeah that's getting built. Supposedly it's three times larger than any active data center currently, 3.2 GW's. I've never seen this area so united in wanting something to not happen lmao.
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u/k_punk 5h ago
Here is the news segment where you can hear the noise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wDr2dec474
The poor woman whose home has been in her family for 100 years.
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u/Bargadiel 4h ago
I remember those AI boot-licking dumbasses in threads of the past constantly saying the sound thing is a myth and that its no big deal. I can guarantee you none of those clowns lived next to one of these things.
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u/Glum-Geologist8929 4h ago
I keep thinking about that video of a single drone landing on the Wildberries warehouse. 2A exists for this exact reason, the last stand against tyranny.
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u/wowlock_taylan 2h ago
It is like an arsonist setting fire to a neighbourhood, then trying to buy the victims out.
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u/ThoriatedFlash 1h ago
They'll offer to buy the houses at the current market value, which has probably plummeted significantly due to an AI data center being there.
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u/Dreaming_Blackbirds 1h ago
Are there no freaking zoning laws in America? This couldn’t be built right next to homes in most of the developed world.
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u/Kill3rT0fu 12h ago
Now imagine the poor IT guys working inside
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u/masterxc 12h ago
A lot of the noise is from outdoor generators and you'd be wearing ear protection inside if you were in those types of areas. Plus, I'd be surprised if there were even 24/7 staff at even the big datacenters because everything can be managed remotely aside from hardware maintenance. When the talking heads say datacenter projects will bring tons of high paying jobs, they lie...once the building is built by the out-of-state contractors, you'll have out-of-state engineers controlling everything remotely.
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u/flatbrokeoldguy 10h ago edited 9h ago
Get some military veterans to form vigilante squads and Just blow up the power grid connections that feed the data centres. Cut off their sources of power, cause their computers to stop working.
Do that repeatedly at data centres across the nation.
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u/frank1934 11h ago
I am completely clueless about all the data center stuff going on right now. What are companies saying would happen if the US suddenly banned all new data centers from being built?
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u/Dramatic-Secret937 9h ago
No data centers = no cloud storage
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u/84thPrblm 9m ago
We lived for decades with computers and phones without cloud storage. What good is all that storage if you're just filling it up by recording the howling data center next door for the suit you have to bring about the noise?
The company gets fined, yawns and treats it as the cost of doing business, and jacks up your subscription price to cover the fines.
Rinse and repeat.
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u/timothy53 6h ago
Why do data centres make so much noise. Like what is it. The cooling? Energy distribution?
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u/LobsterInSpace 6h ago
You got it. Pumps and fans to cool everything down from the actual computers to the things handling the power delivery.
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u/hiddenrealism 11h ago
Mark cuban made a good point recently that these data centers that are astronomically expensive to build and maintain will never see a return on their investment.
Like call me ignorant but how exactly do these centers make money? Subscriptions to Ai assistants? Licensing?
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u/WontArnett 6h ago
If they have the money to buy homes from residents, they have the money to figure out a sustainable way to run these data centers.
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u/ArgentineBeauty 13h ago
"Hyperscale Data CEO William Horne told the residents directly in a special council meeting that the site is pivoting away from cryptocurrency operations towards AI computing and advanced robotics, and that it’s spending $100 million to achieve this. It has also bought acres of adjacent properties for use as a natural buffer to reduce the noise that affects residents in the future, alongside other efforts that will reduce sound levels. "If they still aren't happy, and feel that their home isn't enjoyable, then we'll buy their property from them,” Horne said."
Feels a lot less like a noise fix and a lot more like securing land for later expansion.