it's difficult for me to imagine this level of compute existing and sitting there idle somewhere; it just doesn't make sense.

So we can at least assume that whoever is deciding to move the capacity does so at some business risk elsewhere.

I've stayed away from the hyperscalers but worked at places where requesting 400 servers for a task was normal and routine.

Understanding scale is a weird thing, that I guess is psychological. I think the different experiences and travels I have made have an impact on this. Despite living for over a decade in Texas I live in one of the most densely populated places. But I recently got to visit Colorado, which is far less populated and has lots of weird places.

You can drive up to the base of the Great Sand Dunes and walk up the first few hills quite easily if you're in good shape. Here's some photos

https://www.hydrogen18.com/p/2024-great-sand-dunes-national-...

If you pull out your smartphone and look at Google Maps, it becomes pretty obvious how insane the scale of the place is. There's no real prohibition on where you can walk there because it isn't necessary. It's so large and the environment is so harsh, you aren't going to cross much of it on foot. Ever.