urbanSTL

quincunx wrote: ↑

11:20 AM - Apr 23

What are they spending $22B on? Is this the biggest project in Stl region history?  How much power is this one going to draw?

90% is equipment 

$19.5B over many years

"tech hub with a data center that could include $19.5 billion in equipment purchases through 2050."

quincunx wrote:$19.5B over many years

"tech hub with a data center that could include $19.5 billion in equipment purchases through 2050."

A single Nvidia GB200 NVL72 rack (the current flagship) runs roughly $3M. A hyperscaler building 100,000 GPUs is looking at billions in hardware alone, and that hardware has a useful life of maybe 3–5 years before it’s obsolete.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

5:17 PM - Apr 23

quincunx wrote:$19.5B over many years

"tech hub with a data center that could include $19.5 billion in equipment purchases through 2050."

A single Nvidia GB200 NVL72 rack (the current flagship) runs roughly $3M. A hyperscaler building 100,000 GPUs is looking at billions in hardware alone, and that hardware has a useful life of maybe 3–5 years before it’s obsolete.

Which might be a point that the level of this investment and the current outflow of profitability is... questionable.

“Controlling time — whether via the clocks for churches, trains or data centers — has always been a function of controlling the political order.”

― Kate Crawford, Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

gone corporate wrote:"By far, the greatest danger of AI is that people conclude too early that they understand it." 
— Eliezer Yudkowsky, AI researcher and Co-Founder, Machine Intelligence Research Institute 

Great quote to explain why we shouldn't be building AI infrastructure in the middle of up and coming transit oriented areas.

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Community Votes to Deny Water to Nuclear Weapons Data Center
https://www.404media.co/community-votes-to-deny-water-to-nuclear-weapons-data-center/

StlPR - Ferguson postpones discussion on tax breaks for development and data center project

https://www.stlpr.org/government-politi ... er-project

B1M takes a look at the data centers boom:

and they want to put one in the old Famous Barr warehouse??? lmao

framer wrote:B1M takes a look at the data centers boom:

Comments are based

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Ragtimer wrote:

StlAlex wrote: ↑

9:58 PM - Apr 25

framer wrote:B1M takes a look at the data centers boom:

Comments are based

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I apologize for my naivety, but what does “based” mean?

Based = correct, have the morally righeous view

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Data Centers Reveal America's Economic Development Brain Rot
https://boondoggle.substack.com/p/data-centers-reveal-americas-economic

BarryGlick wrote: ↑

12:43 PM - Apr 27

Data Centers Reveal America's Economic Development Brain Rot
https://boondoggle.substack.com/p/data-centers-reveal-americas-economic

Great article, thanks for sharing. This stood out to me:

"Watson’s remarks make it sound like he thinks the goal of public policy is to help a specific corporation secure the best deal for the corporation, rather than the public, in the name of Maryland being perceived as pro-business."

You could swap out "Watson" and "Maine" for 90% of all other elected officials across all levels of government and the sentence would still be true. This is our governing ideology, certainly in the US if not all western countries, and it is bi-partisan (they disagree only on which specific industries and/or corporations should be helped in this way). 

To the author's point, and as many others have said on this thread, data centers are just the current industry on which both parties presently agree. Pumping the breaks on data centers is crucial in the short term, but its only the first step toward finding a more prudent and sustainable approach to economic development that prioritizes long-term shared prosperity over short-term shareholder returns.

States rethink data center incentives amid costs and environmental concerns 
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/02/data-centers-states-tax-incentives-00891184

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... -site.html

Ferguson City Council rejects tax break for the proposed data center redevelopment of Emerson's former headquarters.

The proposed tax break would have spanned 15 years and had a value of $355 million to $1.52 billion.

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StlAlex wrote: ↑

4:45 PM - 8 days ago

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... -site.html

Ferguson City Council rejects tax break for the proposed data center redevelopment of Emerson's former headquarters.

The proposed tax break would have spanned 15 years and had a value of $355 million to $1.52 billion.

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Great news, thanks! Hopefully more Munis, including StL, follow Ferguson's example. I'm convinced that none of these projects get off the ground without significant public subsidy and the promised tax revenue ($400Million for SLPS!?!?!) is just developers blowing smoke up rube legislators' arses.

I drove through Lebanon, IN and saw the Meta data center being built. It’s massive. It’s creating 4,000 construction jobs over 3.5 years and 300 permanent jobs that are qualified as “well-paying.”

I don’t know what states and communities will be correct on the topic of data centers in the future. But, the state of Indiana seems to be a state that goes after attracting business, investment, events and opportunities with an energy Missouri doesn’t have. Missouri kind of ponders, waits, bickers…and by then someone else swoops in steals the opportunity or the investor says “F this place.”

It’s pretty sad. This is the path Missouri will go down for much of all our lives. Stuck in our own ways and never really attracting anything new.