DALLAS \u2014 More than 400 data centers are fully operational in Texas, but as the facilities spread across the state, there is still confusion about what they are and what they do.<\/p>\n
For some Texans, the term data center brings more questions than answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cUm, what is a data center?\u201d said Connor Tebbs, a student at the University of Texas at Dallas.<\/p>\n
Aidan Byrd, a Dallas resident, said he also was unsure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like it just be a spot where a lot of maybe engineers, scientists kind of where they work at,\u201d Byrd said.<\/p>\n
Some people associate data centers with collecting personal information.<\/p>\n
\u201cI assume they collect our data,\u201d Tebbs said.<\/p>\n
Others have heard about their connection to artificial intelligence and water use.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they use a lot of water. And it\u2019s for AI,\u201d Tebbs said.<\/p>\n
Egor Rybakov, another UTD student, offered his own definition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say a data center is something that collects a lot of data for a student to be used afterwards,\u201d Rybakov said.<\/p>\n
To better explain what data centers are and why they are expanding, Spectrum News spoke with industry and academic experts.<\/p>\n
Kirk Offel, CEO of Overwatch Mission Critical, has worked in the data center industry for over 25 years. He compared data centers to hotels.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, instead of people renting suites, companies rent suites in these hotels so they could put all of their IT in there and make sure it never stops working,\u201d Offel said.<\/p>\n
Companies can rent space for their computer equipment rather than building and maintaining their own facilities.<\/p>\n
Kevin Hamlen, a computer science professor at UTD, said data centers can serve several purposes.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them specialize in data storage, so you don\u2019t have to have all of your own drives. You can store large amounts of data there safely. Others are specializing in doing computation tasks, so you\u2019ll hear about them in the context of AI,\u201d Hamlen said.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence is one reason data centers have received increased attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI requires a lot of computing, and instead of buying all of your own compute hardware, you just rent out time in somebody else\u2019s facility,\u201d Hamlen said.<\/p>\n
At their core, data centers provide infrastructure for companies and organizations that need computing resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re designed to be able to accommodate as many different kinds of computing needs as different companies and organizations might need,\u201d Hamlen said.<\/p>\n
That can include storing data, running websites and providing the computing power needed for artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
In simple terms, a data center is a facility where companies can store information and rent the computing power they need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 More than 400 data centers are fully operational in Texas, but as the facilities spread across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[132,1570,102,104,103,138,136128,223,82,3621,1569,835],"class_list":["post-443494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-austin","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-el-paso","tag-ezekiel-ramirez","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-technology","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}