• Data centers are raising temperatures in towns and cities
• Researchers recorded variations as high as four degrees
• Considerations for heat need to be made when planning and constructing data centers

Data centers operate thousands of GPUs in order to solve computational problems, generating heat in the process. This heat then needs to be removed to keep the data center cool and working at maximum efficiency.

However, some data centers are pumping out so much heat that it is raising the temperatures of local towns and cities by multiple degrees. In some cases, heat islands with temperatures 16 degrees F higher have been recorded.

Researchers at Arizona State University have studied the effects of data center heat output in Phoenix, and found that temperatures can rise by as much as four degrees F, exacerbating the health risks caused by high temperatures, and compounding the heat output of Phoenix as a whole.

Data centers are raising temperatures

The researchers measured the air temperature both upwind and downwind of four selected facilities. The facilities ranged in output from a 36-megawatt data center in Mesa to a 169-megawatt campus in Chandler. According to the study, data centers of this size can put out as much heat as 40,000 households.

When measuring the temperatures at the data center sites, the researchers recorded temperatures 14 to 25 degrees F higher than the surrounding air. As these thermal plumes moved downwind, they raised the temperature by an average of 1.3 to 1.6 degrees F, with the highest recorded temperature being 4 degrees F higher than temperatures upwind of the data centers.

“Even if these data centers only contribute to an additional heat island magnitude of one degree or two degrees, that can still have a very significant impact on our lives”, said lead author David Sailor, professor at Arizona State University and director of ASU's School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.

Not only can the higher temperatures make health risks related to heat worse, but even a 1 degree F increase can drive up energy consumption and heat output of air conditioning in residential and commercial areas, which in turn raises temperatures further.

Sailor and co-authors suggest that city planners and industry developers need to take into account the heat output of datacenters during planning, and consider using greenbelts, woodlands, or parks to act as a buffer between data centers and population centers.

Heat output is just one of the reasons residents in the vicinity of planned and constructed data centers are protesting against such facilities.

Via TechXplore

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Benedict is a Senior Security Writer at TechRadar Pro, where he has specialized in covering the intersection of geopolitics, cyber-warfare, and business security.

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