Get the latest news and updates from Dawn
ABOUT a week ago, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif inaugurated what is billed as Pakistan’s largest data centre. The 8.5 MW facility is the creation of Sky47 AI Cloud, which is also reported to be constructing a slightly smaller 5 MW data centre at Karachi’s Port Qasim. According to speeches made at the event, the data centres are intended to provide the hard infrastructure for Pakistan’s artificial intelligence needs.
There is no doubt that the world is clamouring to build data centres. In the US, industrial developers are buying up cheap rural land to locate massive data centres there. The biggest one, planned for a rural county in Utah, is intended to be some three times the size of Manhattan. Initial plans showed it at 40,000 acres, but after a Utah lawmaker pushed to shrink that footprint by three quarters, it shall be completed over 10,000 acres. It is expected to draw 7,000 to 9,000 MW. It is also expected to decimate climate and plant life around it: one estimate published as the project drew opposition suggests it could raise nighttime temperatures nearby by several degrees, killing plant and animal life in the area. Residents unlucky enough to live around it worry they could be left short of water and have to put up with the constant hum of thousands of fans cooling the mega computers inside.
