Whenever my wife has a stressful day at work, I like to meet her at the door with a glass of red wine. It always brings a smile to her face and reinforces that sense of belonging that comes with being home. This magic is possible because, like many families, we share our locations. My ability to perfectly time the dinner or have her beverage ready the moment she walks through the door is powered by technology: global positioning satellites, Google Maps, mobile data. When our friends look at photos taken on trips to iconic locations like the Parthenon or the Pyramids of Giza, they comment on the lack of crowds. The sites weren’t empty. We just used the magic on our phones to identify and erase the people in the background. When we walk up to our home at night, the porch lights illuminate on arrival. Cameras track the elk and turkeys near the barn. When someone enters the bathroom, a circulation pump kicks in to ensure the shower is hot before the handle is turned. I can ask our smart home to play virtually any song ever recorded, or speak into a remote to summon my selection from a seemingly unlimited library of entertainment. We’ve become accustomed to this “Star Trek” lifestyle. But every bit of this magic relies on hidden apparatus in a data center. Before the recent explosion of large language models, what most of us refer to as artificial intelligence, the infrastructure was already there. It dates back to the earliest days of the phone company, when nondescript, windowless “central offices” were the brains behind the wired phones in our houses. As communication evolved, those buildings morphed into the modern data center. Online shopping, live streaming, payroll systems, tax filing, dating apps and video streaming all require massive amounts of compute, the industry term for raw processing power and storage. And make no mistake, our country’s ability to compete and defend itself depends on us maintaining our lead in this digital arms race. The catch? Data centers are the ultimate introverted neighbors. They require what Utah has: vast, flat, inexpensive land and access to water. More importantly, they need affordable energy to power the rows of servers and the massive air conditioners required to keep them from melting. Elected officials need to get ahead of this. They need to realize that while building these monolithic structures creates jobs during a the construction boom, running them does not. In my former life providing cloud services, I spent plenty of time in these facilities. I’d park next to a jet-engine-powered backup generator, swipe my card for access, and walk down long, cool, halls humming with servers. The overhead lights would illuminate as I moved, the only sign of life in a building filled with thousands of spinning fans. I don’t remember ever seeing another human during those visits. Our friends in Box Elder County are trading thousands of acres of land for very few permanent jobs. I don’t have all the answers, but I do know we need these centers for more than just AI. We need them for almost every facet of modern life. Yet, the thing that scares me most isn’t the power, the land or the water. It’s the e-waste. While the public debates the view of the building, nobody is talking about what happens every three to five years when those miles of racks are gutted and upgraded. We are building massive monuments to convenience, but we haven’t yet figured out where the old magic goes when it dies. Maybe there’s a diplomatic solution in the offing: We strike a deal to send our 5-year-old servers to China. It would solve our mounting e-waste crisis while ensuring our global adversaries remain comfortably and permanently five years behind the curve. Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at [email protected] The post The Porcupine Quill: Less than meets the eye in benefit from Box Elder data center appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less