Arizona Data Centers Raise Phoenix Temperatures Up to 4 Degrees – Air-Cooled Data Centers Create Thermal Plumes Exacerbating Public Health Risks and Amplifying Heat Production in Cities and Towns

• Data centers raise the temperature in towns and cities
• Scientists recorded variations as high as four degrees
• Heat must be taken into account when planning and constructing data centers

Data centers run thousands of GPUs to solve computational problems, generating heat in the process. This heat must then be removed to keep the data center cool and operating at maximum efficiency.

However, some data centers pump out so much heat that it raises the temperature in local cities by several degrees. In some cases, heat islands with temperatures 16 degrees F higher have been recorded.