Data Center

Data centers are the hidden cost of the internet. Every email, search, stored video lives on servers in climate-controlled buildings. Those servers generate 500 watts of heat each. A data center with 10,000 servers generates five megawatts, consuming the power of a small town. In 2010, building a data center cost $5,000 per kilowatt of capacity. A 50 megawatt facility costs $250 million to construct. Google and Amazon started buying land in remote places with cheap electricity. Electricity cost was 30% of total operating cost. One penny per kilowatt hour difference meant millions in annual savings. The bottleneck wasn't electricity. It was real estate development. Finding land, getting permits, building infrastructure took two years.