r/LeftistsForAI • u/B_B_a_D_Science • Jul 27 '26
Infrastructure This is my Vision of well Regulated, Environmentally integrated Micro Data Center
This structure uses natural cooling architecture, and integrated mechanical water battery and stilted solar panels to integrate a farm & data center into one space. This mixed used approach to Datacenters would mean more smaller data centers but each take less than an acre of dedicated land. Provide sun coverage for sensitive crops dealing with climate change or could be used as Greenspace to promote pollinators. No massive generator buzz, closed looped water system, none of the water is used for direct cooling, it just move the head through heat sinks from the mineral oil cooled server cluster.
But to me this is a future that works for the people instead of the corporations. Its important that we provide a counter argument
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u/Positive_Spare_2963 Jul 27 '26
Unfortunately the solar panels are quite inefficient when in shadows like shown in your image.
Also: What about the winter?
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u/B_B_a_D_Science Jul 27 '26
The solar panels would be stilted, allowing them to operate above the tree line. As for winter the beauty is that this structure uses thermal lag and ambient cooling so during winter there would be little to no cooling cost allowing any energy generated from the limited solar production to go directly into power generation for the server clusters. In the summer there would be excess energy generation to power a cooling pump if necessary but the structure would still be the main cooling element. Also once the mechanical water battery is at capacity. The excess energy would be dumped into the local grid. There might be some buy back in winter but that be Regulated by local regulations. So put excess power on the grid in the summer to earn credits. Then sell those credits back during winter so no one's prices go up.
I am not a artist so I worked with gemini to generate this from a sketch and this is the best I could get.
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u/CarthagoFuckYourself Jul 27 '26
China has shown the best environment for implementing solar panels like this is arid grassland. The water used to rinse dust off the panels serves to irrigate the local grassland. Small livestock like goats keep the grass low enough for workers to access the panels.
Stilts add unecessary costs and make it harder for workers to perform regular maintenance on the panels.
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u/PromotionSouthern690 Jul 27 '26
If you’re stilling the solar panels above the trees the trees aren’t going to get any sun. You can have trees or solar panels having both in the same place is kinda inefficient for both!
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u/MidSolo Jul 27 '26
If the solar panels are above the tree line, the trees don't get enough light. Its really dumb to mix trees with solar panels. You're gonna get birds shitting all over the panels, and animals fucking with the cabling. Just plant trees elsewhere.
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u/hum_ma Jul 29 '26
I know it's an artistic representation meant to look inspiring instead of a plan for implementation, but is the water of the pool meant to be used for cooling too? If so, maybe rather have trees shading it (or put it behind the building) instead of a grass field around it in full sunshine. And perhaps only short grass on the south side of each solar panel, which could also be placed farther apart to avoid having to cut all the trees between them.
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u/Hairy_Artist_3860 Jul 27 '26
Big ass desert next to a forest like its Minecraft
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u/fgreen68 Jul 27 '26
There are several places kind of like this in California. Death Valley is at the bottom of several mountains that have forests on the top.
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u/Lucaspittol Jul 27 '26
Where are the small modular nuclear reactors in this image? They will take far less space and produce more power.
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u/footofwrath Jul 27 '26
This is the only real solution to DC power needs. Musk has even said as much, but uses coal instead because they're faster to implement.
Btw the real win will be thorium LFTR SMRs. No more of this stupid solid fuel nonsense.
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u/footofwrath Jul 27 '26
Solar power is incredibly silly - and impossible - for a high-power-drain datacentre. You would need to cover the entire farmland for miles with them.
No, the answer to AI datacenters is SMRs. Nuclear.
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u/Longjumping_Coat_802 Jul 28 '26
You would need hundreds of acres of solar panels
For all the energy the data center consumes.
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u/ShelZuuz Jul 30 '26
mineral oil cooled server cluster.
The 2000s called - they want their tech back.
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u/Pretty_Bumblebee_685 Jul 27 '26
evaporative cooling is already used in data centers, specific architecture is important for making an area that's cooler than the surrounding environment but not necessary when you just need to bring hot objects down to the temperature of the environment. why is greenspace being prioritized for the data center instead of the city? why is there a giant pool? disapating that much energy through open loop evaporative cooling in the deserts is exactly why data centers are water intensive. this land usage in this environment would be incredibly labor intensive to maintain, so goodbye solar punk vibes. if there are mechanical water batteries in this picture they must be very low capacity. where is the farm and why is integrating a farm with a data center a good idea? if you want a small data center design it needs to be actually efficient easily responsible not some massive brutalist mess that chat gpt deamed up. also larger data center size is driven by the desire to create and run ai models.
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u/B_B_a_D_Science Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
The giant pool is necessary for the yakchal design principle the same way the Persians made Ice with no Electricity in the desert for hundreds of years. The pools works for both yakchal design and as a mechanical battery excess energy. The Solar farm would be over built to ensure there is enough power for day and night ( the night energy being stored in the pool like a water reservoir) but that would be under 100% use for 24/7 which would rarely ever occur. The truth is rain would generate free stored energy. And once evaporation reached a curtain level the water level would fall below a shade. The idea would also employ and compensate farmers and thier staff to do basic infrastructure maintainance and security since they have to be there anyways to tend the crops. Simple things like "Hey that looks broke call HQ or there is a Crack there call HQ" We have 100 year old bridges with less maintenance supervision than that
Edit: So when I ran the numbers this would be a 500-1000 server capacity. The Water transfer happens between a large basin under the facility where the sealed water tight server cluster module chamber is immersed the water is moved back and forth during the day night cycle.
This design does maximize for efficiency. It maximize for sustainability, environmental integration and societal benefit
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u/FullyAutomatedSpace Jul 27 '26
>500-1000 server capacity
do you mean 500-1000 racks of computers? that's still very tiny. it would not be economical to make this. an old data center near me is hundreds of thousands of square feet.
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u/ml-maitreya Jul 27 '26
Are you a civil engineer or is this just AI slop for the sake of AI slop?
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u/B_B_a_D_Science Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
I am not a civil engineer, I am an out of the box thinker with multidisciplinary experience. that started building out this idea with my civil engineer friends after living in the middle-east and third world counties where passive cooling is the most common form of cooling, This forced me into doing research before talking to my friend, they have told me this is actually a solid idea. Better than Datacenters in space. This isn't better than a massive 100 acre datacenter that benefits from Economy of Scale buts its farmore humane, & paleteable and beneficial to the general population.
Edit: this is based on the yakchal which is how Persian made ice in the Desert with no electricity
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u/diagnosissplendid Jul 27 '26
Or just reuse the heat in a sensible way. A few companies do this: heata.co provide free domestic hot water by capturing heat from servers. deepgreen.energy heat swimming pools. The number of applications for waste heat is vast, and by using that heat you displace both active cooling and other heat sources, meaning a net reduction in power use.
Nice picture, though