this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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More and more mainstream analysts are identifying the coming AI crash, which is a good indication that it will happen soon.

So, what happens to all the data centers? They are already built but probably very expensive to maintain. Will many of them just be abandoned? Bought up by cloud computing companies? Scammers? Crypto miners? Can they be parted out and sold off piecemeal?

Will they be put to some productive use, or just become massive e-waste sites left to the locals to deal with?

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[–] Asafum@lemmy.world 149 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 38 points 1 week ago

This is the most accurate assessment of the situation I have heard thus far.

[–] bambancico@piefed.social 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 18 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Hardware that dies in 5 years. At least the houses are still around assuming they didn't get wiped out with those fires

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[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 95 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 28 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

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

But the hallucination problem means that everyone will end up with a meaningless list of AI hallucinated "prior offenses" that could be used to arrest, detain and disappear literally anyone, based on mismatched unaudited surveillance footage of completely different people.

I'm thankful that no powerful persons today want a world where they can do that to anyone they find inconvenient.

It would be genuinely alarming if we had any total assholes out there with wealth or power or both.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 week ago

Mmhm very alarming. Good thing we are safe.

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[–] leadore@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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

Yes, and other sources. That's my theory as to why most of them are being built in the first place, regardless of AI.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I dont believe its a theory. Its absolute fact. Why else would they be requiring cameras in all cars next year, and putting flock cameras all over every city? That surveillance data needs to be stored and sorted through. This is the real reason for the massive push of data centers and bribery of politicians.

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[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 44 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 37 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Not sure about the buildings themselves, but I'm pretty confident at least their contents will flood the secondhand market with cheap secondhand gear. I won't say the crypto bubble has burst, but a lot of the mining rigs are being parted out and sold fairly cheap, and one specific crypto mining board has become popular as a DIY gaming system. (Currently doing a BC-250 "DIY SteamMachine" build myself).

As for the buildings, maybe we'll see some creative uses like indoor farms or something. Or, perhaps, it'll just be a mundane "AI datacenter becomes a generic data center".

I'd guess they'd be repurposed into business centers or office space like we've seen with old malls, but malls were usually in populated areas where datacenters aren't.

[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's kinda hard to reuse datacenter hardware for home use. Many connectors are different, form factors too. Not to mention the noise, in servers noise is about the last priority.

Selfhosting enthusiasts will get great deals, but I doubt it will become mainstream.

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If my gaming PC dose not sound like a jet taking off, I'm not satisfied.

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[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Based on where brick and mortar retail is right now (and assuming e-commerce continues to thrive), there won't be much conversion of the data centers into anything useful due to how many buildings are already sitting idle. Maybe some will become distribution centers. But most will probably sit dormant and slowly crumble into disrepair.

[–] Nighed@feddit.uk 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They have great electrical connections. Fill them with batteries (not spicy lithium ones) and you have loads of local energy storage.

Lots of the difficulties with green projects right now is the electrical hook up, so they have all done the hard work!

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[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 36 points 1 week ago (2 children)

A golden age for laser tag arenas

[–] glibg@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I would prefer a roller rink revival myself, but laser tag is fun too.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Ok hear me out: Roller laser tag!

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[–] Alvaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] HailSeitan@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Horror movie idea: The Rackrooms

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[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago

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

[–] Bieren@lemmy.today 20 points 1 week ago

Spirit Halloween gonna have some massive sales.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

Cheap datacenters for sale to the surviving AI companies. It's not like all things AI will disappear just because the bubble pops.

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hopefully the used storage would flood the market and drive down prices.

[–] Burninator05@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I think thats wishful thinking. I don't think that most of what goes in a modern datacenter has much use outside of a datacenter.

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 17 points 1 week ago
[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

In past crypto busts, Nvidia bought used datacenter GPUs and threw them away, to keep prices of new cards high.

They will undoubtedly do this again. Probably AMD/Intel too.

And “FOMO” style crypto mining sites were just abandoned or repurposed AFAIK.


But honestly, I don’t know what will happen now. Especially to the “quick and dirty” sites like Meta’s server tents, all the supposedly temporary evaporative cooling/gas generators and such.

Used server GPUs are still pretty good processors for all sorts of things. I would guess that Nvidia pivots towards robotics and“business virtual reality,” kinda like they’re already pivoting towards more utilitarian LLMs with the Nemotron releases, so maybe the surviving GPUs will get used for that.

[–] andyburke@fedia.io 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Do these datacenters even exist or are they just plans on paper?

My impression is we aren't axtually building anywhere near what these investors are investing in.

Will there even be anything to repurpose or scrap on the other side?

I am not so sure.

Oracle is building one of there several plans and even that one is gonna be years behind schedule. The rest are hardly more than a slab of concrete right now. So forget parting out computer hardware, they barely even have more than a couple of new buildings to sell off and so much debt that cannot possibly be paid because it depends on openAI suddenly having astronomical increases in revenue to even finish the existing plans.

Other players might be further ahead but I suspect the biggest gain for the gaming hardware market will simply be the cancelation of supposed contracts to buy up things like RAM and the drying up of money to buy AI-specific GPUs, forcing NV to actually care a tiny bit about the gaming segment again.

[–] Kittywifclaws@piefed.world 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The one about 30 minutes from me most certainly exists. The one 15 minutes away they are building at this moment is just as real. The noise is ruining everything. The air is smoggy. It’s not just an interweb myth or something. These things are a blight on the places they appear in DC area for reference.

[–] lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 14 points 1 week ago (15 children)

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.

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

After 2008 whole half-built neighborhoods were just left to rot and abandoned.

That'll happen with data centers too.

[–] Strider@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Socialize the losses.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (14 children)

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

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[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 12 points 1 week ago

Make them detention camps for MAGA traitors and pedophiles.

[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

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

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[–] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

They will stop pretending they’re data centers and we will start calling them what they really are, surveillance centers

[–] finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

If they're abandoned, they could be filled with storage containers, and people could live in them. I hear access to water and electricity is already set up.

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[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It'll be a golden age for repo men.

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[–] Pamasich@kbin.earth 11 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Datacenters aren't only used for AI. They could be used for cloud gaming, or in general for hardware-as-a-service models as a capitalist solution to high hardware prices for consumers.

Or just good old server hosting.

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[–] WhatISawInTheForest@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] Nouvellalia@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

World's
Biggest
LAN Party!

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 9 points 1 week ago

Indoor golf. Karts. Lazer tag.

[–] reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hopefully cheap parts, but more likely just another excuse for higher consumer prices on everything.

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