The Unknown Infrastructure that Powers our World

[@briangarrow448]

I live in the Pacific Northwest and have some experience with infrastructure projects. An interesting fact is that for decades the huge power system along the Columbia River had aluminum smelting as its major customer. Those smelters are almost all gone. What happened to all the power that was used by the aluminum industry since WW2? Well, interestingly enough, now that power is being bought by those internet data centers. Those data centers are consuming the power that used to feed the aluminum industry. That is a huge amount of energy.

[@tynao2029]

This is why they are banning electric and gas for normal people who aren't rich or part of the government. Because the government and rich people will be the ones using it all. There won't be any world left for the middle and lower class people.

[@FastSloth87]

Fun thing, those server chassis and racks are made of aluminum.

[@TimHoppen]

Same, I'm in the greater Portland area, and I drive past about a half-dozen DCs in my 7 mile drive to work.

[@westside213]

You're making it sound like some kind of moral victory that they outsourced aluminum smelting to poor regions of the world. Virtue signaling hipsters are still responsible for the resources they consume even if they're polluting someone else's rivers.

[@adaffro]

Same thing happening with our smelter down Tiwai in NZ!

[@jimmurphy6095]

My job is to keep all the instruments located in those little brick buildings you see along the sides of the roads, calibrated and functioning properly. There are pH, Chlorine, fluoride, flow, pressure and a host of other instruments monitoring and running the infrastructure all around us. Our entire society runs on a billion simple 4-20mA circuits.

[@joseluisblanco8074]

Are all analogue? Don't you use communication protocols?

[@jimmurphy6095]

@@joseluisblanco8074 Regardless of the communication upstream, most everything defaults to a 4-20 signal at the point of measurement.

[@railgap]

@@joseluisblanco8074 4-20ma current loop is an industry standard for a physical layer. Communication protocols exist a layer or two above that.

[@railgap]

@@joseluisblanco8074 Do you also consider Ethernet to be analog because there is electrical current flowing through the wires?

[@stepheneyles2198]

@@joseluisblanco8074 the original commenter is exaggerating a bit! and those have nothing to do with data centres either - OK they might have some in the air conditioning or power supply systems but they're not the most important part of any system! (I work on them [4-20mA loops] myself, that's how I know!)

[@TheChangeYT]

5:58 Data centers will certainly NOT consume as much as 20% of the worlds' electricity. Currently It is estimated, to be around 1.1-1.3 % Please Revise! @TheB1m Maybe the team misread the source, which reported a 20% increase.

[@Furiends]

yikes

[@CharlesShopsin]

Yeah that’s what I was thinking. I’m guessing he meant 2%

[@L4JP]

@@CharlesShopsin Maybe, but they even used a graphic, so it wasn't just a narrator mistake.

[@stepheneyles2198]

@@L4JP ... also making it more difficult to correct!

[@TheChangeYT]

@@stepheneyles2198 I agree 100%. And I think you have to correct this sort of thing. This is kind of textbook misinformation

[@grahamcollins6810]

I've been lucky enough to work in several UK data centres. What always strikes me is how few people there are in them. I have often spent days in vast halls of equipment racks and other than security guards on the entrance, I don't see a soul when I'm inside. Bliss!

[@visualstoryteller6158]

Next time put servers in haunted houses of uk. U wont b ever truly alone with low demand n low pricing estates benefits company saving millions. Uuh ghosts gets company also😂.. i guess win win

[@westside213]

You sound like a poster child for the loneliness epidemic

[@railgap]

@@westside213 sounds to me like someone who prefers to work alone, and who gets more done on their own. People aren't stamped out of factories like Model Ts; they vary quite a bit.

[@_JamesBrown]

As a cloud security engineer, I appreciate all you data center workers that make my job possible!

[@achyscorpion2417]

Awesome video! I wish some of these data centers had visitor policies, so nerds like myself would be able to visit and just be in awe of all the cool stuff in there. Like a kid in a candy shop.

[@punkgift]

Salem Chapel in Leeds, UK is now an events venue and the data centre can be seen through the transparent floor.

[@Xeonerable]

I've been to 3 different ones and got tours but only because I work in the IT field. Otherwise they don't really want random visitors.

[@wsxgfhccr]

Why would you? It'll just be a bunch of extremely loud racks

[@AndyGneiss]

@@wsxgfhccr But you can probably get some good stories out of the people who design/assemble/maintain it all, and perhaps learn something.

[@cruisinguy6024]

Most data centers are petty boring - just rows and rows of racks filled with noisy hardware. The drone from thousands of fans is somewhat annoying and often times loud enough to want ear plugs. Getting a tour would be pretty difficult without having a need or connection. For security reasons there’s a multi layered defense setup, for example first layer is keeping people out of the building that don’t have a need to be there. 2nd layer is secure entry into the data center floor. 3rd layer is locked server racks (or sometimes even cages around sensitive racks) I know one datacenter had a crisis after a contractor doing telecom work accidentally hit the emergency shutdown button. So really, the goal is to allow as few people on the floor as possible.

[@leewhotravels6253]

Good Stuff! Thanks Fred and team. I'm part of the team at Microsoft that oversees information security management at our datacenters. Recognized many of the facilities featured in your video as I've been fortunate enough to visit many of them as part of my role. 🙂 So glad to see the B1M providing coverage of this often overlooked part of our infrastructure!

[@RA-fotog23]

Thank you for Your services which are mostly unrecognized but so very vital.🎈👍☺

[@Shinkajo]

Did Microsoft made you post this comment?

[@arrjay2410]

I was vaguely aware of the "server farms" and some of the innovative things they were doing to deal with cooling. It is very interesting to see it all summed up in one video. Thank you.

[@256united]

Fred would be great if you ever done some videos in regards to rollercoaster constructions, probably not something you’d consider but would be great content ! And id love to see an in-depth documentary or mini series talking about this because id love to know more

[@dcallan812]

We are currently having power lines (from a new wind farm) laid and coming ashore just a mile or so up the coast from my house. Its been really interesting watching them work everyday. Many of the ships that have been in and out have been used for fibreoptic internet cables. Great video 2x👍

[@MassiveBuild]

Well said, dear friend. Internet backbone is an incredible thing

[@SIRENSCINEMATIC-SCOTLAND]

The first ship you showed is my ship I'm actually one of the supervisors that operates and maintains the machines that install the subsea cables ama

[@Samuel_J1]

LPT: delete any unwanted/unnecessary digital files you keep stored on the cloud as it all takes up server space, consumes energy and creates heat just by existing. Nice video, but it would have been cool to see more of the construction aspects, or pros and cons of different server locations.

[@Alexrocksdude_]

The script reads like it was written by microsoft. Congrats on the sponsorship but this video is noticeably lower quality.

[@peterixon8708]

Stunning, the insights from this video. Brians comment below about the Columbia River power usage compliments your video really well B1M. Thanks for the obvious effort you've made.

[@Timmycoo]

Lol this was a thing I was going to request of you since I thought it was up your alley. The underwater data center idea. I follow quite a few tech channels who have touched on it a bit but it seems like such a big endeavor that I look forward to it coming to fruition. One of the biggest reasons (apart from the water cooling aspect) is the protection from a Carrington-level event coronal mass ejection.

[@ricardocantu]

Wouldn't this just be directly accelerating global (ocean) warming?

[@westside213]

@@ricardocantu not to mention it's completely inefficient from an infrastructure perspective. We have way too many "design firms" in this world that make a living from creating pretty renderings of ridiculous ideas that will never work.

[@ohheyitskevinc]

I have an Apple data center just over the road. Huge site with its own solar farm and fire station. Seems weird to think my iCloud Photos and backups are floating around either there or somewhere similar.

[@JokeswithMitochondria]

That’s why I don’t trust cloud

[@sterlingarcher8041]

@@JokeswithMitochondriafunny username. Your entire channel is mood lmao. +1

[@FastSloth87]

@@JokeswithMitochondria The cloud is just someone else's computer.

[@polishguy8495]

Beavers building data centers? Now thats a mod for Timberborn I never know I needed.

[@swiftmooseblz3872]

I am a BIM coordinator for a electrical contractor. All we do are these data centers and they are crazy.

[@JonMartinYXD]

Use the heat to warm crop fields from below. Extending the growing season by an extra week or two can dramatically increase yields from existing crops and open up the potential to grow crops that previously couldn't be grown in the region.

[@Eric_In_SF]

I really dislike it when sponsors are integrated so smoothly into videos. It just seems dishonest, and I don’t know where the lines between am I being fed information or am I being fed an advertisement begin and end. KZbin is going to have to face regulation like the television industry soon Especially when it comes to other KZbinrs, who have their own product lines and don’t have to mention sponsorships, and basically just turn their channels interruptions for their products, and are no longer feeding good information from a neutral standpoint

[@dm3on]

please do more video on data centers and infrastructure in general

[@BlackfeatherTanfur]

One really obvious data center is One Wilshire in Los Angeles. It is actually a case of adapting a former office building, it was built long before the Internet existed. Stewart Hicks did a good video on it.

[@brettmorton7365]

The best way to hide is in plain sight. I remember an electrical substation near where i used to live, and it just looked like a house! You'd never have known...

[@jimmurphy6095]

It was most likely specified in the contract that any structure must conform to the residential neighborhood it's located in. You wouldn't believe what's inside some of these. Some are pump stations that are 4 and 5 stories deep.

[@kiwitrainguy]

I wonder if they get visited by door-to-door sales people.

[@RLJSlick]

Great video. We were just told a month ago, that a Microsoft data center will be built here in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, near the Foxconn location....

[@tadmarshall2739]

Noise is also sometimes a problem from these data centers when fans are moving heat into the atmosphere.

[@anonaki-mt6xb]

Just recently subscribed and this is the first video to come up. Utterly fascinating - I'm hungry for more. Thanks folks :)

[@l1nus0nl1neproductions9]

Reminds me of a project in Östersund, Sweden. Where there gonna use excess heat from the server farm and pipe it into a big greenhouse next door

[@tonypapas9854]

REALLY glad you touched upon this subject! What's worrisome is that the security around many data centers is soft - and I mean from geopolitical bad actors that could simply cause physical damage that would impact the entire world.

[@Shinkajo]

So you would want what, SAM instalations and bunkers or something?

[@ProjectPhysX]

7:24 how can a datacenter possibly create water???

[@Nick-ye5kk]

Yep, talk about BS!

[@lawrencefrost9063]

He just mentioned wetlands being created around the new datacenter. Is your attention this bad?

[@Nick-ye5kk]

@@lawrencefrost9063 try not to care, it's a corporate video and every attempt to integrate technology with nature is doomed to fail due to the sheer tedious boredom that inevitably ensues.

[@Mikebigmike94]

dam, got a sponsor from Microsoft? Shows how much this channel is blowing up! well done it's deserved .👍

[@joseluisblanco8074]

I hadn't given a second thought to data centers before. Thanks for the video!

[@ALLOFTHEBOOST]

I so love these videos. So informative.

[@ravenmichauk9412]

The problem with data centers is that they require so much energy. In the Netherlands, we have a new windpark that specifically build for a datacenter at Zeewolde. That's just not right.

[@MrPesht]

It's interesting how we think of the internet as being this virtual thing that isn't real, but it's easy to forget the internet is very real and all those data have to be stored somewhere physical.

[@ricardocantu]

I get that it's great when the heat from the servers is re-purposed for useful stuff, but that's not exactly the case for the undersea one. The heat is just very efficiently being dissipated across the ocean. Isn't that technically worse for the environment, from the global warming perspective? (especially if these data centers were to be widely implemented in huge scale)

[@ooooneeee]

IKR, ocean warming is a huge problem. Using the ocean to cool datacenters isn't sustainable.

[@sunroad7228]

"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most. No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores. No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future" (2017).

[@Mar_Ten]

To be honest, I expected a bit more details. This is a very broad video.

[@davetv4705]

I have learned somethings today. Thanks, B1M Team.

[@luxushauseragency]

Just imagine what else is hidden in plain sight 😮.

[@barkingcatswow]

good PR video by Microsoft!

[@dominoreaction2564]

Fascinating underwater drive.

[@Toastybear1]

My absolute favourite thing about this video, was the guy in the promotional footage literally from Microsoft themselves, using an Apple MacBook with a sticker over the back 😂

[@Furiends]

👍

[@mastersonogashira1796]

i kinda want this channel to cover the city of chongqing and it’s insane architecture. I know it’s not modern, but it’s still cool

[@markodj1628]

The b1m should do a video about Belgrade waterfront

[@confused_horse]

That background music sounds exactly like my door bell sounds when I have my headphones on. I almost died of anxiety.

[@jattikuukunen]

There was no background music.

[@confused_horse]

@@jattikuukunen you got me there. I was already typing furiously!

[@jbtechcon7434]

What fraction of the equipment and that electricity is just being used by the NSA?

[@raidensnake9471016]

24.9% 😂

[@vipassana72]

I recently cycled past my childhood neighbourhood. two large wind turbines have been constructed in its back garden. they are the greatest things I have ever seen. they generate clean energy and continuously work as and when they are required to for the good health of the public. to look up at them inspires me to acknowledge human evolution with thanks and respect. quite rare. I in fact think they are that brilliant at what they do that more should be constructed to provide even more clean and free energy for the area because after installation costs have been covered the energy that is then provided is completely free energy. who doesn't like free energy provided by nature? why not build even more wind turbines for Microsoft because they too are excellent at what they do and deserve to be cleaner than what Google are.

[@SebasL10]

I like the idea honesty!

[@baldassarealessi1007]

Thank you video interesting compliment for the information some news project in the World.

[@thomashiggins9320]

I have liquid cooling in my gaming PC, at home. Man, it's a game-changer, no lie! 😮 A lot of the data-centers used by corporations in the Colorado Front Range cities were built up near Cheyenne, Wyoming. The wind constantly blows, there, and even in summer the nights get quite cool.

[@jasonstedwell918]

They are building one of these Microsoft centres near Melbourne Airport. It has been interesting watching it get built. I thought it was unusual from the start so I did some research to find out what it was. It’s a perfect location to watch the progress and the different things they are doing

[@Sagealeena]

I didn’t know about this! Where’s it being built? I was just thinking that Melbourne would be the perfect place to have some of these

[@JayP3171]

Yeah big structures cool but i think you should make videos on other areas of construction like residential homes.

[@alistairgrantham9314]

as a fibre optic engineer i would love to see a video on that

[@jerrysstories711]

Hold up. If data centers are soon to use 20% of the world's electricity, then what fraction of our total carbon footprint is trivial entertainment usage like streaming and TikTok and KZbin?

[@stevenrburgoyne]

It varies greatly but on average it is about 100-200 kilowatt hours a year per person across all services you use. That is equivalent to about 1 month of electrical usage for an average household, per person.

[@Furiends]

Obviously a lot of what goes on in data centers includes things like data analytics and stuff a user isn't requesting

[@stevenrburgoyne]

@@Furiends that and every single aspect of daily life in North America runs something on a server. Your phone, utility usage, traffic light control, listening to Spotify, the list goes on. All of that is processed in a datacenter somewhere.

[@jattikuukunen]

It's actually estimated around 1%, it's a mistake in the video. The max number I saw after a quick search was "up to 3%".

[@jerrysstories711]

@@jattikuukunen well, he is also talking about projected numbers, not current ones.

[@HatchPartners]

Can you make a video explaining what a realistic future city looks like. They are building one right now, called Utah City.

[@syntheticEEV]

this video was one of my favourites by far! I had no idea microsoft literally owned the internet. lol

[@morganhill449]

Doesn't really matter for a construction audience but Microsoft has very little to do with what would traditionally be referred to as the internet backbone. Internet backbone generally refers to tier-1 and tier-2 networks who tend to own most of the fiber. Microsoft in the context of the internet backbone are a handful of Autonomous systems (networks) with peering/transit arrangements allowing them to reach and be reached y the rest of the internet. One could turn off all Microsoft data centers and the internet would function just fine you would just have to watch youtube rather than being productive in office 365 ;)

[@mariateresazacate3896]

Yes..! I've seen it in a documentary NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC " DRAIN d OCEANS" that ALL INTERNET CABLEs of ALL OVER the WORLD 🌎 are in the OCEANS UNDERWATER... I LOVED 😍 it. An EXCELLENT & BRILLIANT WORK..!

[@maggotpudding]

When I look at these massive server warehouses I can't help but to think that there is huge amount of roofspace that could be utilized for solarpower. I know it'd be only fraction of the energy required but it'd be better to use otherwise wasted space.

[@tncorgi92]

Microsoft: "The ocean is cool." Um, yeah, check back with us in a couple of years.

[@jpwillm5252]

Running under Linux.

[@chrishillery]

And I'll bet not one of those blade servers is running Windows.

[@AnimatedCardboard]

I wonder if in 50 years the UK will have it's own CNC like force to guard these data centres and their external infrastructure. The more we rely on the web the more catastrophic an outage would be.

[@M.Godfrey]

Excellent video guys well done 👍

[@ericdanielski4802]

Nice video.

[@3DGEM3]

I wonder how much data would be removed if we deleted all data thats sitting unused, like all the dead accounts and unwatched videos.

[@krashd]

Slippery slope, how much physical space would we gain if we burned all the books no one has read for a while? I'm all for cleaning up dead accounts but only an author should be able to decide whether something they created gets destroyed.

[@GazMoby]

Very enjoyable as always 👍

[@moncorp1]

Funny listening to them talk about how nature friendly they are and are going to be. There's nothing nature friendly about a data center and never will be. No matter how it looks on the outside.

[@furrom152]

"The ocean is cool. Let's change that!"

[@shopshop144]

Good, but too short. You and your MS friends just covered the surface.

[@DouglasJWalker]

I like how they are thinking

[@ronpalmer1371]

What does B1M stand for ?

[@bastiaan7777777]

(formerly name was Theb1mGoogle) It's an abbreviation of that.

[@MartyFox]

BIM stands for Building Information Modeling. It’s a relatively new tech that involves software modeling of buildings and infrastructure. The B1M company was originally founded as sort of Internet forum for BIM users. It stood for “BIM 1 Million.”

[@karengerhardt6008]

Fascinating! 🤓

[@Bennny.H]

Is there anyway you could do a video on Melbourne? Either the Metro tunnel or Suburban rail loop (Largest rail investment in Melbourne)

[@theonlyleg9822]

Hey B1M Please do a video on Anaerobic Digestion, it js such an amazing technology that can be used for gas, electricity and fertiliser, it is a 0 waste farming method for low yield land which can help farmers use poor arability for the better providing green energy and gas! The fertiliser is a byproduct - technically the only waste but it can be repurposed into fertiliser

[@taimo389]

Nice video with some shortcoming, though, with respect to environmental measures. Planting a tree next to a data centre just seems as good as planting a tree anywhere else. The visual impact of such centres, the mere fact that it appears to the eye, has little to do with the actual environmental concerns. The centres do not produce oxygen and will not do so themselves. The centres remain a part of the problems even when they are camouflaged by greenery, water or anything else…

[@swiontek19]

They should just bury the data centers like 50 to 100 feet or more underground they will stay pretty cool down that far I think then they won’t have to worry about any of the equipment getting damaged from getting too hot

[@tek_soup]

build a giant reservoir place the servers in there, two for one, storing water/cooling servers.

[@dlifedt]

As an ecologist, I must say that planting a row of trees won’t “boost biodiversity”.

[@krashd]

If removing trees lowers biodiversity then surely the opposite is also true? If you build it they will come...

[@dlifedt]

@@krashd My problem is with the word "boost". (also Its important what you plant and how big an area)

[@918_xDx]

Pryor, Oklahoma has one of Googles largest data centers.

[@TechMonkey22]

Does not matter, but 1 petabyte=1k terabytes, not gigabytes. Otherwise great video 👍

[@olivergreen3842]

That building right at the start is Oliver's Yard by Old Street roundabout in London. Is it a data center? Not as far as I know! It's commercial offices.

[@yellowtuesday]

Love this! Would love to see more tech infrastructure content!

[@JamesFFiT]

Amazeballs❤

[@krashd]

Totes.

[@msbgone]

I watched this because it was your vid, but if the title said Microsoft Data Centers I think more may watch, just my 2 cents that no one wants.... LOL... Great Vid Fred, really interesting!!

[@bpier]

I'd rather see a video by you on Google data centers and their global network.

[@dlbstl]

What was that big cylinder in the ocean being lifted by the jack-up platform? I'm not sure what you said it was. Data center, experiment?

[@krashd]

A submerged data centre module where the computers inside it dissipate their heat directly in to the sea.

[@lowkeytalented2288]

This whole thing creeps me out, at that info they have on us. And got forbid the power grid goes down bc of all the power these things are using also.

[@theblubbered]

I can't tell if this is a youtube video or an advert for Microsoft.

[@bigredc222]

What effect will using the ocean to cool data centers have on the ocean?

[@timregier5338]

I'm very confused about what is happening in the Microsoft tank lowered into the ocean. Are there servers inside the tank? Seems like the video just skipped explaining how that was "taking the idea of water cooling to a whole new level"

[@krashd]

It likely does contain servers with the heat dissipated by the shell of the tank in to the water, hence the amount of crap growing on it - organisms love heat.

[@JW-uv7ww]

That fella at the end was wearing a Lamborghini shirt.

[@alparslankorkmaz2964]

nice video

[@JorisPauws]

well excited to see a whole new forest at agriport then because rn the data center at 7:27 isnt close to one at all hahaha

[@kevinsoutham]

Occasional breaks to mention video sponsors - yes. An entire 8 minute video promo puff piece for Microsoft with a barely tangential link to the channel? No. You’ve jumped the shark.

[@konstantinnutsov1833]

how do you know what goes on where all the time

[@andriskah406]

I'm not even surprised 2:31

[@weepz]

And they tell you Bitcoin uses a lot of energy...

[@JanBaars]

where in Amsterdam is this?

[@bastiaan7777777]

Middenmeer.