At least 3000 in operation now, and about 1500 in various stages of development. They support AI systems and cloud data storage, and consume tremendous amounts of resources, both in electrical energy to operate them, and water to cool them. Putting them in rural locations puts a lot of strain on local utilities, so they need to bring in new, high capacity electrical lines, or set up local electrical generation systems that consume a lot of gas or oil to run.
Personally I think this is a long term disaster for us. We're seeing AI based computer systems inserted into all phases of our lives. Soon we'll not be able to do business anywhere without them. And, whoever controls the AI systems will be the controllers of the nation.
Every movement we make, every statement we commit in e-mail or social media, every financial transaction we do...virtually our very existence will be stored somewhere and available as a means of monitoring our actions, and predicting our life choices. Most of that information is already there, but AI provides the mechanism to harvest and combine all that data into complete dossiers on everyone.
And that's just the start.
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