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In rural New York, some see proposed AI centre as a needless intrusion
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America’s AI boom has created a need for data centres across the country that can support the technology involved.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Mark Sommer
NEW YORK - A proposal to build an artificial intelligence data centre between Buffalo and Rochester, New York, is facing opposition from critics, including residents, who say they fear that the sprawling centre’s droning supercomputers will disturb Indigenous communities and animal life, strain the power grid and raise utility rates.
The US$19.4 billion (S$24.8 billion) data centre, to be constructed in the town of Alabama in rural Genesee County, would require 500MW of electricity, according to the proposal, equivalent to 20 per cent of the electricity generated daily by the nearby Niagara Falls hydropower plant.
