{"id":382742,"date":"2026-01-02T03:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382742\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T03:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:24:08","slug":"researchers-are-hunting-america-for-hidden-datacenters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382742\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Are Hunting America for Hidden Datacenters"},"content":{"rendered":"

A team of researchers at Epoch AI, a non-profit research institute, are using open-source intelligence to map the growth of America\u2019s datacenters. The team pores over satellite imagery, building permits, and other local legal documents to build a map of the massive computer filled buildings springing up across the United States. They take that data and turn it into an interactive map<\/a> that lists their costs, power output, and owners.<\/p>\n

Massive datacenter construction projects are a growing and controversial industry<\/a> in America. Silicon Valley and the Trump administration are betting the entire American economy on the continued growth of AI, a mission that\u2019ll require spending billions of dollars on datacenters and new energy infrastructure. Epoch AI\u2019s maps act as a central repository of information about the noisy and water hungry buildings growing in our communities.<\/p>\n

On Epoch\u2019s map there\u2019s a green circle over New Albany, Ohio. Click the circle and it\u2019ll take you to a satellite view of the business complex where Meta is constructing its “Prometheus” datacenter<\/a>. According to Epoch, the total cost of construction for the datacenter so far is $18 billion and it uses 691 megawatts of power.<\/p>\n

\u201cA combination of weatherproof tents, colocation facilities and Meta\u2019s traditional datacenter buildings, this datacenter shows Meta\u2019s pivot towards AI,\u201d Epoch said in the notes for the datacenter. \u201cReflecting that patchwork, our analysis uses a combination of land use maps, natural gas turbine permitting, and satellite\/aerial imagery of cooling equipment to estimate compute capacity.\u201d Users can even click through a timeline of the construction and watch the satellite imagery change as the datacenter grows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of public discourse and discourse with researchers about the future of AI,\u201d \u00a0Jean-Stanislas Denain, a senior researcher at Epoch AI, told 404 Media. \u201cInsiders have access to a lot of proprietary data, but many people do not. So it just seems very good for there to be this online resource.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zoom back out to a wider view of the country and click a circle in Memphis, Tennessee to learn about xAI\u2019s Colossus 2<\/a>. \u201cTo start powering the data center, xAI made the unusual choice to install natural gas turbines across the border in Mississippi, possibly to get faster approval for their operation,\u201d Epoch AI noted. \u201cBattery facility looks complete (though more might be added). Turbines look connected up, minimal construction around them. Based on this, and on earlier tweets<\/a> from Elon Musk, 110,000 NVIDIA GB200 GPUs are operational.\u201d<\/p>\n

Information about the datacenters is incomplete. It\u2019s impossible to know exactly how much everything costs and how it will run. State and local laws are variable so not all construction information is public and satellite imagery can only tell a person so much about what\u2019s happening on the ground. Epoch AI\u2019s map is likely only watching a fraction of the world\u2019s datacenters. \u201cAs of November 2025, this subset is an estimated 15% of AI compute that has been delivered by chip manufacturers globally,\u201d Epoch AI explained on its website. \u201cWe are expanding our search to find the largest data centers worldwide, using satellite imagery and other data sources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The methodology section<\/a> of the site explains how Epoch AI does the work and includes timelapse photography of the monstrous datacenters growing. One of the big visual tells it looks for in satellite imagery is cooling equipment. \u201cModern AI data centers generate so much heat that the cooling equipment extends outside the buildings, usually around them or on the roof. Satellite imagery lets us identify the type of cooling, the number of cooling units, and (if applicable) the number of fans on each unit,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe focus on cooling because it\u2019s a very useful clue for figuring out the power consumption,\u201d Denain said. \u201cWe first want to estimate power, but often we don\u2019t have much information about that\u2026and then we can relate power to the amount of compute and also the cost of building it. If you want to estimate power, cooling is pretty useful.\u201d<\/p>\n

After counting the fans, the Epoch team plugs the information into a model it\u2019s designed that can help it figure out how much energy a datacenter uses. \u201cThis model is based on the type of cooling and physical features like the number of fans, the diameter of the fans, and how much floorspace the full cooling unit takes up,\u201d Epoch AI explained on its website. \u201cThe cooling model still has significant uncertainty. Specification data suggests that the actual cooling capacity can be as much as 2\u00d7 higher or lower than our model estimates, depending on the chosen fan speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charting America\u2019s datacenters with open source intelligence isn\u2019t a perfect practice. \u201cIn the discovery phase, some data centers will be so obscure that we won\u2019t find news, rumors, or existing databases mentioning them. While larger data centers are more likely to be reported due to their significance and physical footprint, there are many smaller data centers (<100 MW) that could add up to significant levels of AI compute,\u201d Epoch AI said.<\/p>\n

But Epoch AI continues to expand its toolset and look through more satellite imagery with the goal of mapping Big Tech\u2019s newest project. The goal is to cast light into the darkness. \u201cEven if we have a perfect analysis of a data center, we may still be in the dark about who uses it, and how much they use,\u201d Epoch AI\u2019s website said. \u201cAI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic make deals with hyperscalers such as Oracle and Amazon to rent compute, but the arrangement for any given data center is sometimes secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

About the author<\/p>\n

Matthew Gault is a writer covering weird tech, nuclear war, and video games. He\u2019s worked for Reuters, Motherboard, and the New York Times.<\/p>\n

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