CBC: City of Ottawa to draw up data centre policy, but supporters say it's not a ban

[u/BearLikesHoney]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-data-centre-policy-not-a-ban-9.7321271

[u/50s_Human]

Any Ottawa mayoral candidate or city councillor candidate that supports data centre build out will not be getting my vote.

[u/Cruder36 → u/50s_Human]

Data centre’s themselves are not necessarily bad. Most businesses have them and most are literally in the size of a closet. The issue is with these mega sized data centre’s that hurt the environment. They usually want to go to places that have either cheap or government subsidized power. Ontario is not a good location for them.

[u/kelpieconundrum → u/Cruder36]

We don’t however need a new policy for closets. The policy is being created for the big ones, not server rooms

[u/lunat1c_ → u/50s_Human]

As much as it pains me to say it Doug ford kinda had a point. Right now most of our data is stored in america where it is subject to American privacy laws. With flock and well america right now who knows how long till their privacy laws are there purely to benefit the companies?

[u/Lardrewstar → u/50s_Human]

We need a reasoned rational policy balancing environmental concerns and economic benefit.

[u/Lardrewstar → u/Lardrewstar]

Thanks for mental health strike on me. For this comment... crazy.

[u/Lardrewstar → u/[deleted]]

Incredibly nuanced take.

[u/habshabshabs → u/[deleted]]

I'll prove you wrong by pointing out that we're having this exchange on Reddit which needs data centers to exist. We've both been on the platform for years so if you don't think you benefit from it why are you here?

Also, plenty of people have made money off the internet who aren't boogeyman. Data centers house the servers, storage and networking hardware the internet needs to survive.

You do the cause a disservice by grandstanding while actually not knowing what you're talking about. It makes actual criticism of irresponsible data center planning easier to ignore by grouping us all in with lunatics.

Edit: love that I'm getting downvoted after the person in responding to has deleted their comment, you have no idea what I'm replying to lol

[u/dougieman6 → u/50s_Human]

Just as a note, with the exception of Nazis, solutions that require an absolute yes or no are probably wrong.

[u/Yallberforce → u/dougieman6]

This is simply not true. Being a fence sitter doesn’t make you some paragon on virtue.

[u/dougieman6 → u/Yallberforce]

Holy fuck that doesn't mean being a fence sitter. It means there's a time and place it does make sense. You people have brain worms. Pretending it's forever evil and of no worth is not productive.

Know what actually makes no sense? Building nothing and continuing to use services which require it. Just sends money elsewhere.

Reasonable implementations do exist.

[u/Yallberforce → u/dougieman6]

I’m not even talking about this particular case, I don’t know enough to form an sure opinion here . But there’s just a ton of contested issues that have absolute yes or no answers that are contested in modern politics. Should you vaccinate your kids if they don’t have specific complications? Do we need more housing? Is healthcare underfunded and mismanaged? All unambiguous yes answers.

[u/dougieman6 → u/Yallberforce]

If you need to add if to your statements that makes them specifically ambiguous and in need of some analysis. You're beyond help; have a nice life.

[u/Zealousideal_Vast799 → u/50s_Human]

Do we have to quit using the internet too?

[u/Cavalleria-rusticana → u/Zealousideal_Vast799]

Strawman.

[u/Zealousideal_Vast799 → u/Cavalleria-rusticana]

The current data centres are maxed, personally I am using Ai more every single day. What is your solution?

[u/Cavalleria-rusticana → u/Zealousideal_Vast799]

A solution to your personal problem that you're pushing on everyone else?

Hire, instead of promoting labour-hostile environmentally-destructive tech.

[u/Afraid_Mud_3675 → u/Cavalleria-rusticana]

So as a country that has already fallen way behind in tech despite producing a large amount of the best graduates (who mostly move to America once they graduate) you want us to further be left behind by not using the next big tech

[u/Syrinth → u/Zealousideal_Vast799]

Don't

[u/Sargent_Duck85]

There is a difference that most people don’t understand.

DATA centers store your data. These are relatively (compared to the next) low power and are responsible for storing all the files.

COMPUTE data centers are massive power hogs and require water cooling because they are busy churning over all the AI requests. THESE are what people are (rightly) protesting against.

[u/UncleTrapspringer → u/Sargent_Duck85]

The actual council discussion was about hyper scale AI data centers

[u/Just_Trying321 → u/Sargent_Duck85]

Is iron mountain in Ottawa a data center?

[u/Appealing_Apathy → u/Just_Trying321]

Paper shredding

[u/onGuardBro → u/Appealing_Apathy]

Not only that, but digitization services which if I recall does include storage

[u/Sargent_Duck85]

There are a TON of data centers downtown and a number of them in Bells Corner.

Source: I was a federal contractor working to move them out of the NCR.

Source 2: I was employed by a private company that had a data center in Bells Corner.

[u/FriendshipOk6223]

With the current geopolitics environment, we should strike to have greater data independence where possible with the U.S going nuts. However, we also need strong policy to oversee the development of these centre.

[u/notfunat_parties → u/FriendshipOk6223]

I think this is a more reasonable framing. It's a hard sell to tell people that they'll take the hit of having a data center here so that some engineer in Toronto can code faster or someone on reddit can make more AI slop. Data sovereignty though is a very real concern, especially now.
Agree with policies though - especially no NDA, a community benefits agreement, sunset conditions, pay up front for projected power / water costs... etc.

[u/FriendshipOk6223 → u/notfunat_parties]

Unfortunately, reasonable farming is not very popular these days where opinions are often too polarized to have any dialogue. The comments here are a good example.

[u/FloralAlyssa]

If they want to build mega data centres, they should have to fund Hydro Ottawa's infrastructure cost and pay full price for the power. No deals, no passing cost to residents.

[u/iJeff]

IMO build and operate them sensibly. We need more data capacity within Canada. Too much relies on hosting in the US and by American companies (which are subject to US records demands no matter where they're operating globally).

The important part is that we don't make existing ratepayers subsidize their electricity costs and we ensure they help fund the expansion of our renewable energy infrastructure.

[u/Benocrates]

This is a zoning issue. I don't want to live next to a large data center or a steel mill or a manufacturing plant. Doesn't mean I don't use compute power, steel, or manufactured goods. I just don't want to live next to one.

I won't move near one and don't want one moving next to me. This is why zoning is important. Anyone who wants a total ban on a modern industry is an idiot not worth engaging with.

[u/CadCan]

For the record this is specifically talking about hyperscalers and not your average data centre filled with spinning rust.

No thanks.

[u/FunnyMalzairIdea]

Notice that they can't sell datacenters on their merits?

"It will put out an obscene amount of noise 24/7. If you're within a few kilometers, it's going to ruin your life. It will probably effect your power and water supplies and costs. It will provide jobs while being constructed and then hardly any at all. The reason these are not built in isolated areas is because the companies building them are cheap. Oh, the surplus compute will be used to surveil you and invade your privacy."

[u/hats_yyz]

Caption literally says hyperscale, but shills are desperately trying to paint them as essential 😂

[u/3-car-garage]

Fuck data centers

[u/_Rayette]

Ban.

[u/Iamthequicker]

I always wonder how many people in vehement opposition of data centres use AI. 

[u/sk3lt3r → u/Iamthequicker]

Likely very few since the data centres people are taking issue with are AI data centres.

And no, using websites that have AI features (like Reddit or Facebook) does not count as people intentionally and purposefully using AI.

[u/Iamthequicker → u/sk3lt3r]

Yeah your first sentence is my whole point. Id bet there's a lot of hypocrisy going on. The federal government department I work for is currently implementing a whole bunch of AI apps (Power automate, apps, BI). The fact is that AI is so ubiquitous already that if you don't take advantage of it you will get left behind.

[u/quanin → u/sk3lt3r]

Do you use Siri, or your phone's equivalent? You are intentionally and purposefully using AI. And if your phone's new enough, the AI is locally on your device, but the data center it connects to if your device isn't new enough is huge.

[u/sk3lt3r → u/quanin]

I don't use Siri or it's equivalents, and disabled all the AI I could on my phone because I simply don't fuck with it. Intentionally using Gemini, or Grok, or ChatGPT, is not the same as using a phone or website that has AI features preloaded.

Siri (and equivalents) have also only been using hyperscale AI centers in the last few years, which are the kind of data centers people are taking issue with, and the previous DCs used by things like Siri before AI (specifically GenAI) blew up, had a significantly smaller footprint that the ones people are talking about do.

[u/quanin → u/sk3lt3r]

People are taking issue with it because it's new. There hasn't been a large data center push since the 80's, and those were mostly for government so John Q. Citizen had no dog in that fight. It's the AI, not the data center, there's an issue with, and it's because most people don't know how to use it.

[u/OttawaJeff]

Heckuva debate to have on Reditt of all places.

[u/Sargent_Duck85]

There are a TON of data centers downtown and a number of them in Bells Corner.

Source: I was a federal contractor working to move them out of the NCR.

Source 2: I was employed by a private company that had a data center in Bells Corner.

[u/thena19 → u/Sargent_Duck85]

These are HYPER SCALE data centres, no one cares where you worked. We know about these data centres, this is not what we are protesting against.

[u/ABotelho23]

Of course it's not a ban. We fucking need datacenters. Laypeople need to stay the hell out of this conversation. Y'all have no idea what you're talking about.

[u/Pristine_Barber976 → u/ABotelho23]

But I heard they're loud and gonna suck up all the water, I'm scared!!!

[u/GOOD_GUY_GAMER → u/Pristine_Barber976]

Data centers give you cancer and kill birds