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Phantom data centers: What they are (or aren’t) and why they’re hampering the true promise of AI
So-called fake data centers are a bottleneck to scaling infrastructure to keep up with compute demand for AI and other critical workloads.
Companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft — dubbed “hyperscalers” because they operate data centers with hundreds of thousands of servers — submitted straightforward power requests, and utilities simply delivered. The legitimate players — the aforementioned Apples, Googles and Microsofts — are building genuine data centers, and many are adopting strategies like “behind-the-meter” deals with renewable energy providers or constructing microgrids to avoid the bottlenecks of grid interconnection. The problem isn’t just financial risk — although the capital required to build a single gigawatt-scale campus can easily exceed several billion dollars — it’s the sheer complexity of developing infrastructure at this scale.
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