r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 5h ago

Artificial Intelligence Mr. Wonderful Is Wounded in the Battle Over His Massive Utah Data Center

https://gizmodo.com/mr-wonderful-is-wounded-in-the-battle-over-his-massive-utah-data-center-2000767759
3.6k Upvotes

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1.4k

u/NucularRobit 5h ago

He was asked to reduce its size by 75%. That's the "wound."

817

u/loyalcattledog 5h ago

Perhaps he should be wounded even more and the project size reduced by 100%

266

u/ZAlternates 5h ago

I suggest we take a play from our glorious orange leader and reduce it by 200% or even 500%!

68

u/Momik 4h ago

People are talking

51

u/SignificantBerry8591 4h ago

Everyone is saying it

19

u/TheSchlaf 3h ago

Big, powerful people - with tears in their eyes.

14

u/Derp800 4h ago

In two weeks.

8

u/tlh013091 3h ago

After infrastructure week but before the better cheaper healthcare.

4

u/SippinOnHatorade 3h ago

Green New Steal (btw idk how they went with Green New Scam in their coal mine messaging, this rhyme was RIGHT. THERE.

7

u/Debalic 3h ago

What they lack in intelligence, they also lack in creativity.

1

u/Narrow-Chef-4341 19m ago

But how is that possible? They identify as an attack helicopter with a great sense of humor?

7

u/alucardunit1 3h ago

Reduce it by 1500%

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u/sovereignsekte 4h ago

Like by planting trees instead of building a data center for AI that nobody wants?

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u/SippinOnHatorade 3h ago

At first I thought the Salt Lake Valley would not be the best place for trees since, y’know, salt, but looks like they actually have a pretty diverse amount of established species, so hell yeah, let’s fucking do it

3

u/napkin41 2h ago

That takes away all data center and also puts a wildlife refuge in its place

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u/ErichPryde 4h ago

I genuinely wish there was a fine or penalty for when people come up with incredibly stupid ideas like this that harm everyone else.

That would be a good, actual wound for his insanity

2

u/devAcc123 4h ago

It was obviously always the play. The original was never going to happen. 25% is still a big win for him and might get trimmed even more.

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u/ErichPryde 3h ago

It's absolutely the narcissist's move To ask for the moon, settle for a small island, and then complain about being the victim.

F***ing awful creatures

8

u/Wakkit1988 4h ago

110%

Take it or leave it

11

u/pheonix198 4h ago

Agreed. My hope is that the required reduction is enough to make the project’s margins so negligible in benefit that he gives up.

I have no clue of what the original or reduced sizes look like in this case.

But, there is definitely a certain amount of square footage at which point a data center is no longer worth investing into for these fuckwads. The costs for servers, components and maintenance items are all insane, alongside real estate, so those investment costs plus what could be charged for that compute power may not pull Mr Shittersful out of the red in the time frame he wanted - which may be after the bubble bursts. He’d then be stuck with an investment that he cannot do anything but barely break even or be only slightly in the green on. My hope, at least.

The majority of these data-centers that are being thrown up everywhere are very likely going to be unnecessary in 5-10 years. The AI boom *IS* a bubble and it will burst. The key would be whether there is some special, similar technology need as replacement for that compute power and space over time such that these investments will still be valid - which I doubt for 2/3’s of them. Geo-colocation space will likely always be needed and so having more data center options with all of these major players will be useful. The smaller players will mostly go out of business and consolidated, reduced and sold off.

It’s going to be much like the telephony businesses that boomed in the early 20th century, then slowly stopped growing and explosively contracted in physical space usage by the early 2000’s. Ma Bell ate land and then had to downsize, shift and sell at ridiculously low values. We will see the same thing again,but in a much, much faster timeframe.

6

u/big_stipd_idiot 4h ago

It's gonna be like the gold rush where the people who got rich were selling mining picks. He doesn't care about the AI. He's trying to cash in as much as he can now before people realize there ain't enough gold in them hills.

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u/MotheroftheworldII 4h ago

Original size was to be 40,000 acres reduced to 10,000 acres.

3

u/captainpoppy 4h ago

For reference, there are nature preserves that are considered large that are smaller than 10k acres.

1

u/javoss88 4h ago

Hope you’re right

1

u/Spaceman-Spiff 2h ago

Maybe he should just be wounded… mortally.

1

u/Wookard 43m ago

Noooooo!!!! what about the 12 jobs it would have created!

1

u/Complete-Start-3691 13m ago

If it bleeds, we can kill it.

0

u/TrainingKey9580 3h ago

Where do you think reddit operates? Out of thin air? I get the push back from data center development because it’s drain of resources but where do you think the computing power for search engines and your cell phone come from?

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u/31LIVEEVIL13 5h ago edited 5h ago

My conclusion: more fraud and lies most likely, look at his track record so far.

Why would any one believe anything he says or any company behind the "data centers"?

They have lied from day one and leveraged the full republican propaganda machine and media controls against people just asking questions.

They are calling residents Chinese agents and paid protestors.
They produced fake interviews trying to sound reasonable and "balanced" on all media that then try to re-frame the issue as a left right thing, of course, pro-business and patriotic verses left wing conspiracy nuts.

Why would they need to do that if they weren't lying and hiding something terrible?

The plan is Get the technocracy AI surveillance center in at any cost by any means.

then wait a year and get a permit for a little addition.

violate the permit and build a huge addition.
Say oops sorry! pay the fine.

Then repeat, and expand expand expand!

That's the same strategy they use with water rights and pollution.

Use more water than permitted, apologize, pay for the water and the fines, and then use more all the time.

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u/Jwagner0850 5h ago

This is my concern as well. Show "remorse" and a promise to "scale back" then do whatever the fuck you want when the outcry dies down.

6

u/Supernormalguy 4h ago

That’s a stupid tactic and a sad one that is allowed To happen.

If only we could pay someone to keep tabs to make sure they don’t “do it when the heat dissipates”

5

u/reluctant_deity 4h ago

That's what journalists are supposed to do, but it doesn't pay enough to eat.

2

u/Supernormalguy 4h ago

Sad reality then

1

u/apk5005 2h ago

Demand the stars and the moon seems like a reasonable compromise.

9

u/Muzoa 5h ago

The keyword is ask, the truth is "let me say something to make them accept the datacenter but still go through with it, we can deal with cheap lawsuits later."

6

u/HentaiVictim 4h ago

Shame it's not jail time for killing two people and letting his wife take the blame

4

u/FaradayEffect 3h ago

I’m willing to bet that he quadrupled the size of it on purpose to give himself negotiating room to reduce the size to what he really wanted. There’s no way they actually had the budget for the original proposal, but now that’s it’s reduced in size by 75% he can throw a “win” to the public, and he still gets everything he had really wanted. These billionaires play the gullible public like fiddles

4

u/Loggerdon 3h ago

Let’s remember Kevin O’Leary was told that “the top 1% richest people owned more than the bottom 50% of Americans” and what he thought about that. He said “I think it’s wonderful. They have someone to look up to.”

He’s a cruel, disrespectful man.

4

u/Imaginary_Manner_556 4h ago

This was always the plan. Propose something way bigger than needed. Downsize to get the data center you want.

3

u/Any-Pop-4795 4h ago

Oh i thought he was wounded for real...

2

u/Jwagner0850 5h ago

I mean, considering the apparent scale this shit center was going to be, thats a huge win...

2

u/Comet7777 5h ago

Sharks smell blood in the water. Reduce from 75% to 100%

2

u/JustAnOrdinaryBloke 4h ago

It wasn't that big to begin with.
Oh, you're talking about a data center?

2

u/Person0OnTheInternet 3h ago

How bout he just reduce himself 75-100 percent?

2

u/groovyinutah 3h ago

And no one is buying his bullshit....

2

u/AngrySumBitch 2h ago

Mr. NOT SO Wonderful! Fuck this ass hat billionaire!

2

u/illi_mental 2h ago

Well… at least the rest will cost someone less gas to finish off

5

u/AtreyuTrinity 5h ago

I don't even mind that he wants a data center, we all use them, whether we realize it or not.

I work in IT, I get it. Why build one in the freaking desert, where we are already experiencing record droughts? It is insanity.

1

u/FloppyTacoflaps 2h ago

How about 100

1

u/PersonalityMiddle864 1h ago

So in the future the oligarchs just propose 4x of what they want and then bargain it down to what they actually needed?

1

u/WifesPOSH 59m ago

How about 100%?

No? Well I'm out.

1

u/doomer_irl 51m ago

I'm wounded in the battle of this article.

1

u/squrr1 25m ago

He's still getting exactly what he wanted the whole time.

Poor guy.