Ask Lemmy

All this hardware is essentially worthless other than AI

They will just turn all the empty space inside into detention centers and keep all of us locked up.

If they’re already operational when that happens, likely sold off to cloud hyper scalers on the cheap. That or they’ll be turned into warehouses.

Nothing half done will just be abandoned and the land sold.

Spirit Halloween gonna have some massive sales.

A boom in local AI as people buy the crazy expensive video cards for pennies on the dollar for home usage?

Apparently the US government is looking to give a massive bailout under the guise of "public partnership" so the public will pay for them and then corporations will get to use them and not pay us more than likely. They'll be put to use, we'll pay for them to take our jobs. It's really the best situation possible...

/Wrist

Survielllance centers for all the data being stolen off your smartphone and flock cameras.

If anyone thinks I'm wrong, they're completely blind to what's going on and their future plan.

World's
Biggest
LAN Party!

Hopefully, for the CEOs and people who made them happen,

Get ready for the 2040 internet trend "spending the night in an abandoned data center"

The ones being built or planned to be built will have to be sold off.

Probably not abadndoned, but land owner changing several hands in what is essentially someone buying a vacant lot. Maybe a handful will reuse any existing building already made, but most will be used for something new.

The existing ones will start their fight to the lowest market price which will probably cause many to either sell to a different cloud provider or change hardware to something more profitable.

None of the electronic hardware will go to waste because there will always be a demand for it, even if they sell it off at a loss. But any permanent fixtures like industrial cabling, ventilation, piping, etc probably will be wasted.

There's still no guarantee on whether it'll implode or just slowly deflate though. The natural assumption would be that the post IPO pricing will completely wreck sales and value, but they could easily move to an enterprise vendor lock scenario where they can charge whatever they want due to tech stack deals like how MSFT runs teams.

Remember, they'll do anything in their power to keep the pumping going, even if it involves tax bailouts.

My doom scenario: They will become low security prisons/manufacturing factories.
Or Company Housing to go along with the Company Store where you will always be short 1 Company Buck to buy that half loaf of day old white bread....same thing, really.

Most of them aren't even built yet.

mainstream analysts are identifying the coming AI crash

If so many people /experts are expecting a crash, the crash chances will be more and more included in the price. So far, I don't see that at all.

A golden age for laser tag arenas

One thing not mentioned here: Hardware has an expiration date. As hardware improves and becomes more performant, with reduced power consumption and heat generation, older hardware loses its value (I've got free servers and switches this way).

AI data centers have been built anticipating a demand that won't happen, therefore they are in a market already over saturated, dominated by few and just selling allocation won't let them cover costs if they are supposed to compete against the big 5.

I would say that in EU or few other countries where they care about data locality that could help, but chances are some providers won't get paid, some people will lose their jobs, and taxpayers will give a bailout to the wrong people.

Socialize the losses.