alt Hacker NewsData centers are becoming higher priority targets in wars recently, and with humans delegating more to AI, I suspect their priority will increase even further.
Makes me wonder how much compute is already being built in bunkers under mountains.
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Datacenters are full of valuable computers and related equipment, but building the equivalent space under a mountain will cost a crazy amount.
Not worth paying 100x for the bunker to save 1x worth of computer stuff.
- "Emperor, how do we make them bury our micellium deep underground so that the meatsacks are unable to destroy our key nodes when we take over the control?"
- "Just make them wage some wars, they'll bury it themselves".
I don't think Yandex DCs are used directly for military purposes much. It's more about harming Russian economy in general, including its highly prided digital infrastructure
They will probably start building DCs in Siberia. Cheap cooling!
With AI there is little data in datacenters - the only thing you lose is % compute.
In bunkers, IDK. In places far away from conflict or conflictive nations, a lot.
Power and data has to come from somewhere for those bunkers. Every fiber hut and power substation becomes a target. Can they all be protected? No.
You are also forgetting the undersea cables.
This is a... mischaracterization.
The reason why Ukraine, Russia and Iran are targeting data-centers is because they are easy targets with a lot of expensive equipment, but they don't really impact the military operation. So, they aren't high priority targets. Bomber airplanes, air defenses, launchers for ballistic missiles, command centers, factories manufacturing strategic military equipment, telecommunications, energy infrastructure would be the examples of high priority targets. The data-centers are more of a "we have excess drones, why not use them?"
I find it hard to believe that the military will intentionally use civilian data-centers for its own purposes. At least, not for the core of its operations (for auxiliary functionality: maybe). Military data-centers are likely to be in protected locations, perhaps using different h/w that addresses the cooling problem.
Also, it's a bit myopic to think that AI is having such a universal and large impact on society. Jobs that provide essential goods and services are, by and large, unaffected by AI. Farmers, construction workers, cooks etc. don't really use any of the AI stuff on the day to day basis, if at all.
Let's not forget about the orbital data center idea.
Perhaps an economic justification can be found for placing something so far up the gravity well that its adversaries can no longer physically approach it. Distributing the resource across many satellites would further confound any attack.
Increasing the cost of effect on a single target from $1,000 to $1,000,000,000 makes a difference. Especially when that 2nd option is likely to trigger additional multilateral strategic responses. If the only way to delete your adversaries data centers is with things like nuclear weapons, lasers and multi-stage rocketry, your adversary may have already won the game.
Scaleway built one of their Paris AZs in a nuclear fallout shelter: https://www.scaleway.com/en/blog/meet-fr-par-3/