Using energy always raises nearby temperatures since all energy becomes heat. If any facility is using 36 MW of electricity, then 36 MW of heat is going to be entering the environment somewhere. Though I think what's interesting here is that the effects of this extra heat is highly localized to urban areas.

But just trying to say this isn't data center specific. A steel mill with 36MW of electric arc furnaces is going to release the same 36MW of heat into the general environment.

▲

ndriscoll an hour ago | parent [-]

Not necessarily; a building satisfied by its own rooftop solar should be roughly heat neutral since that energy was already there. The problem is with the power density these buildings imply, requiring energy movement. Everyone could run Qwen 3.8 27B at home with a solar panel and it'd make no difference. Companies could run their traditional servers on-site at their offices, etc.

	▲	trollbridge an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Not quite. If the roof were highly reflective and it's a clear sky, it would reflect sunlight (including infrared) back into space. Of course, we're talking about such minimal levels of power here compared to, say, heating a house in the winter that it's irrelevant. It needs around 300 W to run Qwen 3.8-27b here, which is roughly eqivalent to me as a human walking around and doing basically anything other than sitting still.