Data Centers Make Life Even Hotter For The People Around Them

According to new research, the giant data centers that power AI are creating “heat islands,” warming the land around them by up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit, and making life hotter for more than 340 million people.

There are still big gaps in our understanding of the impacts of data centers, even as they boom in number, said Andrea Marinoni, associate professor with the Earth Observation group at the University of Cambridge, and an author of the study.

Marinoni and his colleagues decided to dig into one under-researched impact...