Letter

In response to With hyperscale data centres, water governance faces its biggest challenge

Data centres as stranded assets

The very technology that created the apparent need for vast data centres that consume community power and water resources, is now moving on largely through China, to make these data centres redundant. Developments in photonic and quantum computing with logic folding and diamonds replacing silicone, will unquestionably render these centres as vast and unnecessary dinosaurs.

Future data centres for AI will be through the technical developments in these fields vastly smaller, with dramatically lower demands for cooling and power consumption. The existing and planned centres will be seen as relics of poor planning and unwise investment.

The vast expenditures on this current model in the US by the AI behemoths will also cause the stupendous AI bubble to burst with fatal consequences for the already declining US economy.

— Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041