BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah — Earlier this month, a Salt Lake Cith think tank released a report on data centers that is intended for use by voters and policymakers.
Ford Copple authored the report for the conservative think tank.
“There's good, high-quality data that exists that shows, for one, that data centers so far just have not had the consumer rate increases on the electric grid that we see, you know, is a common fear, and that there are positive, new advances in water usage and cooling, that really have high potential to reduce water strain.”
He says air quality concerns around data centers are essentially the same as for any area near natural gas power plants, which have been around for a long time. He says that can be an open question.
But Copple says data centers have been in use for decades, and the need for them continues to increase. He also says the demand is outstripping the supply right now, so society needs to figure it out.
“Things like electric impacts on the grid, water usage, air quality, things like that, aren't things that we should just gloss over," he said. "But they also need to be balanced with data, and they need to be balanced with the potential positive impacts that AI brings and the benefits that it's already bringing right now... Data centers are already in use in so many things that we use every day that we don't even think about, but we would be kind of helpless now if we didn't have them.”
Copple's report can be found on the Sutherland Institute's website. He also encourages Utahns to read a report by the Brookings Institute and one by the Kem C. Gardner Institute.
