Do you live near a data center? What does it really sound like?
Posted by No_Landscape_9255@reddit | Dallas | View on Reddit | 103 comments
I’m an artist working on a project about the impact of AI data centers, particularly the noise.
Seen lots of reports of humming and droning sounds in the news..
...but I was curious to hear from people first hand, what does it really sound like if you live near one. Got a recording?
Any better at night, always on?
BCMBCG@reddit
The ones in Allen are completely silent. Since they have so few employees on-site, the properties are even more quiet than an equivalent shopping center, industrial area, office park, etc. It’s just a big ass building on a big ass piece of land.
12VoltGuardianAngel@reddit
That consumes enormous resources but gives nearly nothing back to the community. With only a few employees being paid to then use that money locally. Yet they are on your electric and water systems, probably at laughably low rates, while your rates reflect the supply and demand imbalance they affect.
idkidk23@reddit
Gives back a lot of property taxes to help fund schools and roads.
Choice-Strike1@reddit
Proof?
idkidk23@reddit
That a business has to pay property taxes? They aren’t getting a blanket exemption on taxes, the state sales tax exemptions seem to be a bit much and we are leaving money on the table there imo, but they absolutely play all kinds of state and local taxes like every other business.
They are also massive so these tax bills are rather large. You can disagree with them, I’m mostly indifferent to the negatives pointed out as most are exaggerations, but they absolutely help cities from a tax revenue perspective.
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/state/data-centers-taxation/
Choice-Strike1@reddit
No, that the taxes are funding schools and roads
coolhandluke88@reddit
Oh damn, you just realized how taxes work. Beautiful moment
idkidk23@reddit
Well city and local taxes pay for schools and roads, you can look this up for any city, and data centers pay local and city taxes.
4chanfavorsthebold@reddit
This is just false. All of it.
selipso@reddit
If you want to fight it, stop using Facebook, YouTube, Netflix (video takes up a lot of resources), ChatGPT, and convince everyone else to do the same. They’re being built because there’s demand for them.
Victor-LG@reddit
3/4, I’ll work on the fourth.
BCMBCG@reddit
I don’t doubt they are a massive imprint on infrastructure. OP asked specifically about sound though. For example, Cyrus One’s taxable value is $298M. That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $6M a year in property taxes for a property that doesn’t utilize the city’s most expensive resources like a neighborhood or shopping center would: public safety personnel.
gscjj@reddit
Right then we can go back to using birds to communicate long distances.
I get what you’re saying, but there’s a lot of nuance here. Your ability to post here crosses dozens if not hundreds of datacenter, interconnected by fiber. Something as simple as calling 911 requires your phone to go to tower, send traffic to the servers in the datacenter and routes to your local police station through a series of even more datacenter.
You can argue that AI is an excessive use of water and electric, but giving nearly nothing back to community is maybe an overstatement.
12VoltGuardianAngel@reddit
Yes there are a lot of nuances and yes data centers are an important part of society. However, your 911 call isn't one of them. By nature they are local to local calls and may process through a single data center depending on setup but certainly not a series of them. Data centers are used more to process and serve data than they are for contributing to traffic flow routes. The problem with the volume of them taking over populated areas started to take off with streaming. Content Distribution Networks (CDN) are a major driver of the data centers close to us so they can serve a local copy of netflix, paramount, Facebook, tiktok, ect while giving the user an ultra quick close connection because that's what consumer demand. AI has further supercharged that. The reality is that we CAN put these data centers further out and where appropriate resources are available but making sure that next tiktok reel loads fast is more important.
gscjj@reddit
Incorrect. Telco equipment is stored in datacenters, I’ve worked for a major one that has a presence in Dallas and have been in them.
12VoltGuardianAngel@reddit
Because datacenters are now abundant. Not because they have to.
gscjj@reddit
No that’s how it’s always been. Some of the buildings I’ve been in are 20-30 year old datacenters that have served the area. Even going back further, that same equipment had local distributions that patched in to even larger datacenters.
With 5G, you have mini datacenters, and a lot more local processing.
So yes you’re right, we don’t have to have a lot of things. But with new technologies people have benefited from requires more data. Something as simple as dialing 911 from your 5G iPhone.
michigannfa90@reddit
You do know that Texas rates are barely up for electricity since ChatGPT release right? Like 3%.
If your rates are spiking start shopping new providers
binarybandit@reddit
None of that is about the sound though.
12VoltGuardianAngel@reddit
Correct, but it is an impact they make and a big one. While I'm sure OP is aware I took the opportunity to add it for anyone else who may not be aware.
Covri@reddit
Where are the ones in Allen?
5yrup@reddit
Here's one:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/W1pE2a3UyBQUEKRs7
You can often tell stand-alone data centers because of the small amount of parking, lots of cooling units outside, and probably close to a power substation. There's a few next to this.
KeplerNorth@reddit
Which ones in Allen are you referring to? I live close to the ones north of the outlets. Haven't heard them personally but I think some neighbors have.
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
No they’re not. I live in Allen. I can hear them at night when it can’t be mistaken for traffic.
Nazimindreader@reddit
Where are you about in Allen? My neighbor has been complaining of a low bass like noise that’s been driving him crazy for months now. I can only hear my tinnitus, lol. We’re at Allen Heights and Main.
DandierChip@reddit
That’s just not true man. They only get loud when the generators are running which is hardly ever.
Such-Professor6271@reddit
The one they're building in Utah is supposed to raise temperatures by 20 degrees. God I hope that isn't the case here. Imagine 125 degree summers being the new norm here because of 'data centers", they're mass surveillance centers, that's what they actually are.
mathmagician9@reddit
Why are people saying their mass surveillance centers? Is this a repeat of 5g conspiracies?
siejonesrun@reddit
I think because a lot of them will be holding data from flock cameras?
mathmagician9@reddit
You don’t need an AI data center to store unstructured data. Storing data is cheap and easy already. These AI data centers are being created for massive parallel processing now that AI is eating software and infrastructure.
TheNotoriousKAT@reddit
because of stuff like this
idkidk23@reddit
Do you seriously believe it will raise the temperature by 20 degrees?
michigannfa90@reddit
That’s not even remotely accurate….
sweet_greggo@reddit
20 degrees really sounds incredulous.
extraordinaryevents@reddit
I live in Utah and am against it being built, but the 20° increase is quite exaggerated
favorthebold@reddit
There's a (not yet peer reviewed) study that claims up to a 16 degree temperature spike: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/30/climate/data-centers-are-having-an-underrported Would be interesting to see if that bears out. Even the 3.6 degree average spike would be awful for our area in summer.
9ynnacnu6@reddit
Study needs to be peer reviewed but even I can identify that study has flaws. Its classic case of correlation does not equal to causation. Also, lots of confounding variables not taking into account, and no true experimental controls that could establish causality.
TexasBaconMan@reddit
100% FUD
bananabob23@reddit
Most of it is exaggerated. So many large buildings around here are already datacenters and people have no clue.
Such-Professor6271@reddit
really? I read it somewhere but I cant remeber where lol
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
oh man. wow.
OkHat2573@reddit
I found the noise coming from a data center about 3 miles away to be annoying outside, but not inside our home. The noise is constant and my neighbors that live adjacent to the power plants/bitcoin processing comes from the cooling fans. Neighbors that live across the county road from the mines sued and won compensation. However, the mine still made a annoying droning sound all night long.
LoudSociety6731@reddit
I work in one, and I don't notice anything.
Fuzzy_Echidna3208@reddit
oh man I don't live super close to one but my friend's apartment is maybe like half mile from that big facility in Richardson and she says its this constant low frequency hum that never stops 😅
Like imagine having a giant refrigerator running 24/7 but deeper? She showed me recording on her phone once but honestly phone mics don't really capture how it feels in your chest when you're there. The sound isn't loud exactly but it just... exists all the time
She moved there last year and said first few weeks she thought something was wrong with her AC unit lol. Nights are actually bit worse because there's less traffic noise to mask it. Her bedroom faces away from facility though so with windows closed and white noise machine its manageable
As photographer who does lot of outdoor shoots around Dallas I've definitely noticed that drone sound near few of the newer facilities when I'm scouting locations 💀 makes me wonder how much this stuff will change the soundscape of whole city over time
michigannfa90@reddit
Considering I know and have been on site of this facility many many times I very much question this… I can’t hear a damn thing even in the parking lot so I’d love to know how your friend can hear it even further away and through walls.
The walls in that data center are 16inch concrete…. I’m very skeptical you can hear it from apartments more than 200 yards away.
Some data centers are poorly built… but that one absolutely is not
inkydeeps@reddit
I agree with you that Ive never heard any sound around there.
But the 16” walls don’t do much for low frequency sounds. They travel incredibly well through concrete. Because concrete is dense and rigid, it acts like a conductor rather than a barrier, converting airborne noise into structure-borne vibrations that you can hear and feel.
LittleShallot@reddit
You can’t hear any sound around there but at the same time the structure-borne vibrations you can hear and feel?
inkydeeps@reddit
No. I can’t hear sound there but the 16” concrete isn’t the reason why.
LittleShallot@reddit
Then what can you hear and feel?
inkydeeps@reddit
I don’t feel like this is hard to understand. I’m not sure why it’s confusing to you.
The first paragraph is talking about my experience.
The second paragraph is talking about how low frequency sounds moves through concrete. General theory based on acoustical science. I’m an architect that works on theaters. Concrete only stops high frequency sounds while low frequency sounds it acts like a drum. Theory and science.
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
I live a few miles from one, and late at night, I kept thinking there was a truck idling outside. It is like a non-stop unsettling rumble.
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
do you still hear it currently. any chance you have a recording?
M990MG4@reddit
Sounds like when they put a fracking well down the street from my old house in Fort Worth
Constant pulsing ultra-low bass sounds you can't drown out with white noise or earplugs
Ended up selling the house
kchessh@reddit
That’d be a compressor instead. The frac process can take a while (depending on how many wells are on a pad), but it’s not a permanent thing. The compressor, however, is designed to be there for a very long time
M990MG4@reddit
I don't know all the terminology but this was during the initial process with the tower and the rigs and diesel engines. The compressor station (still there) is across the road and down the way quite a bit.
It was fun hearing 20 garbage truck engines roaring at full throttle, constant diesel smells and random benzene-like odors in my back yard.
Talking about bullet point 1 here
Cansum1helpme@reddit
Same here, rented a house down the street from a gas well over in Keller/North FtW, and I swear I could hear a low frequency hum all the time. Especially at night laying in bed. I figure it may have been the diesel genset running continually.
Lease ended and we bought a house in a non-shale gas area.
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
I lived by a fracking site in Fort Worth too for a few years. All my chronic illnesses escalated while I was living there. The thing about that area too is there’s also a former EPA clean up site (a water pollution plume) and now they’re finding PFAS contamination. Like, hey, Texas. What happened to keeping this state beautiful?
buffalo_general@reddit
Where is the one in Richardson?
Wholenchilada@reddit
It's on E Collins Blvd.
buffalo_general@reddit
Not my parents living 2 miles away from there smh
Shoddy-Outcome3868@reddit
Must not be impacting them much?
TexasBaconMan@reddit
Which big facility? Are you sure you’re not thinking of the factories?
shorty2hops@reddit
Its on Lookout drive and campbell drive. They have an apartment complex across one street from it and a suburb on the other side. I dont know if i have ever heard any sound from it though when i drive by. The interstate (george bush) is louder than anything else and its right next to it.
JenzieC@reddit
That’s interesting. I worked right across the street for 3 years and never noticed anything. I wonder if they just amped up production over the years or if perhaps some people are just more sensitive to the frequencies than others.
gscjj@reddit
I use to live in this area, the construction was louder than the datacenter
michigannfa90@reddit
That’s NTT and Stream data centers
CologneGod@reddit
How is this legal lol
Adultery@reddit
Wildlife must be stressed the fuck out
ReserveFormal3910@reddit
Is that the data center by Renner near the dump?
Such-Professor6271@reddit
Does she notice a temperature difference living near it? Is it hotter?
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
holy moly that sounds intense. thank you for the insight.
i'm sending you a quick DM if you have a sec.. cool you're a photographer!
NotUrMamasCupOTea@reddit
They literally sound like a machine that never turns off. The creepy machine sound from movies is the closest to what these data centers sound like. Here is a clip from a data center next to a neighborhood.
https://youtube.com/shorts/dvOuZmmJm7A?si=WrfNDhpD9GVCo22Z
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
Thanks! I've seen that one, I've been trying to track down who originally took that to get in touch.
If anyone else had any similar recordings I'd love to speak with you.
icecoffeekami@reddit
Here’s a good video on the physical symptoms of data centers
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
ive seen this one. thanks for sharing though.
Professional_Sand771@reddit
Don’t live by one but I work in tech and my company does have a data center (it is a small one). You cannot hear anything from outside but once you are inside the server room it’s super loud and cold. The AC is always blasting in them to keep the servers and stuff at a cool temperature. The sound is more like just a loud AC; like a loud kind of wispy noise. If you try to talk to someone while inside, you will not be able to hear them and they will not be able to hear you. The noise is a constant because these massive appliances need to be at temperature and cannot overheat. If you want to know what they look like, just google “data center racks”. These places are just endless rows of racks filled with servers and other physical appliances.
There are a lot of data centers in Dallas but if you want to see a big one drive out to the Facebook one by Ft Worth, their data center is MASSIVE. But yeah you won’t hear a thing from the outside and it’s just a plain white building.
SlappyWhite54@reddit
I live close to the Cyrus-1 datacenter on Lookout Drive, east of Plano Rd (not Campbell as previously commented). The noise is a combination of large fans, 60 Hz hum and motors. ablThe noise is most noticeable at night; pity the people who have their back yards a few meters from there!'
This is a giant building; during construction they brought in an large number of transformers to power the place from the Oncor substation next door. I'm aware that a large number of complaints have been filed by neighborhood residents. The city has begun to take notice but I'm not optimistic anything meaningful will be done. This facility came to exist with no local notice or oversight.
5yrup@reddit
It was discussed and approved in an open city council meeting. There was absolutely local oversight. There didn't need to be much notice though as it was zoned for this kind of usage for decades.
https://www.cor.net/home/showpublisheddocument/25025/636779817543370000
In the end that land had long been zoned industrial. It's a part of the reason why it was so easy for those warehouses to be built on the other side. Tons of NIMBYs fought against rezoning to allow homes and some small amount of retail, well, it's already industrial, guess we'll build industrial stuff there.
Would you have preferred a steel mill or something?
I bet the noise from the trucks of the warehouses will dwarf the noise from the datacenter.
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
I'm so sorry to hear that.
Do you by chance have any audio recordings that show what it sounds like from where you are?
poirotsgreycells@reddit
I work for a construction company that builds a lot of data centers of all sizes I’ve been in probably a dozen and you cannot hear them outside the building. A lot of them are even silent on the inside. A few you need hearing protection for, but not any more than any other industrial area.
rickyroca73@reddit
I don’t hear anything. I live, used to work near, walk and run right next to multiple data centers. No noise, no problems with water, electricity or bills for either of those. I would prefer there be something like housing where these DC are, but the quality of life has not changed at all since they came in my area since 2017.
shorty2hops@reddit
I wish someone would do a study on the actual engineers that work in those data centers. What happens to them over time? Do they experience sleep issues or have a desensitization to certain sounds?
5yrup@reddit
They're all over the place here at the East side of Richardson. Honestly, many older data centers aren't unlike any other commercial building. I drive past them all the time, I walk around them, never really noticed a lot of noise from them. I mean, not any more than practically any other industrial building.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/89XDTvgzbcfU7ZQn7
https://maps.app.goo.gl/2n3yDYAXdzUDYFXF6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/1dxPC7SqtFgF1FCs6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/WHgf8N6cJnK3USmk6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/4X6NXLx4zkRJaaLS6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/XfqDsa3SvzXkUxfW9
Plano also has a ton of data centers around if you look. Same with Carrollton and practically all the suburbs.They're really kind of all over the place here in North Texas.
There's a wide scale of "data centers" here. There are a couple of things making a difference. Many of these AI data centers have scaled power density sky high compared to what a lot of past datacenter designs were built for. This means way more cooling per square foot, meaning more noise. A lot of data centers just aren't built with that power density in mind.
The other thing making news headlines are especially ones that have supplemental generation on-site, as that's a ton of extra noise on top of it all. There's a reason why we don't normally stick the power plants right in the middle of residential areas! Those things are loud.
fakegold4errbody@reddit
All data centers are not the same. They can vary in size, workload, cooling equipment, backup power, and now that grid connection times are so long, main power source. Many have existed hidden within plain sight, unnoticed for years. The current headlines about ai data centers is a specific workload type with lots of inaccurate info floating around the internet these days. Those servers can get loud when running at/near capacity. But that sound is pretty well contained within the whitespace/data halls. The things people can hear on the outside would be mostly the cooling and maybe the backup generators when they are running. Lots of times these have some sound mitigation and varies how much you can hear. Some newer ones, generate their own power with natural gas turbines. I haven’t experienced the sounds from those to speak on it. Some of those are currently being built south of Dallas and operational ones between Dallas and Austin. Happy to provide some locations of a few operational data centers in your area if you want to park near one and listen for yourself.
-grilled-cheesus-@reddit
This made me look up the closest data center to me. 0.2 miles and I thought it was just an office building. I have never noticed a noise, and I go to work at 5:00 AM and take nightly walks outside. I don’t know how big the one in Richardson is, but I’m assuming it’s a lot bigger than the one here.
inteii@reddit
unfortunately social media misinformation has led to mass psychosis
xoxo_angelica@reddit
All I know is we don’t have nighttime anymore and this shit ain’t helping
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
Do you experience the noise nearby where you live?
xoxo_angelica@reddit
No, I’m not close enough to one, just a concerned citizen who is standing by helplessly as our city is continuously stripping us of resources and QOL in favor of all of this bullshit. I don’t think I’d even notice the noise if I did though considering all the traffic I listen to all night anyway.
Both quiet and darkness in Dallas are but distant memories now
favorthebold@reddit
LOL at whatever bootlicker is automatically downvoting anyone who says anything negative about datacenters. The boot is still gonna step on your face the same as the rest of us, brother.
gscjj@reddit
Incorrect. Telco equipment is stored in datacenters, I’ve worked for a major one that has a presence in Dallas and have been in them.
Fundamentally, there’s physical limits to putting datacenter further, light can only travel so far. The more traffic, the shorter the distance.
On top of that if there’s an existing line passing through a town, you tap into it so every business doesn’t have you run fiber hundreds of miles away. So that’s why you have local datacenters to begin with.
Then there’s redundancy. The ISPs that answer your call need redundancy, and it has to serve the-existing area so now you need a second datacenter somewhere.
fractal_sunny@reddit
I live within a block or two of 5 DCs, and 2 more popping up even closer. I will be honest, I don't hear them. I walk past them and I don't hear anything. I hear way more motorcycles and loud azz cars drive by then i ever do DCs. I do wonder how much of the DC hype is true.
OodlesOfNipples@reddit
There are heaps of data centers around Dallas. Just pull into the parking lot of one that isn’t too close to a highway and experience it first hand. Though, I don’t believe the experience will be that illuminating.
The interior of these buildings, however, is a different story. I wear hear-pro when working inside due to the horrendous buzzing of thousands and thousands of cooling fans turned up to maximum. That sound is compounded by the humming of industrial battery backups and the droning of the A/C units.
The thing which is the most annoying are the fans inside the devices. Most of the fans are small 40mmX10mm fans. When you get enough of them at high speed, it kinda sounds like a DJI drone, perched on each shoulder, going full blast.
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
thank you for sharing you own experiences with it. are you saying when you step out you dont really hear that much?
OodlesOfNipples@reddit
To be entirely honest I’ve not really noticed. I will pay attention going forward though.
Really, I just feel relief for being outside, out of the noisy interior. I guess what I’m saying is that the exterior noise doesn’t really compare to the interior noise.
I believe what you’ll experience if you decide to visit the exterior of some of these buildings is that they have a similar noise profile to other industrial use buildings of the same size.
The area that would be the noisiest would be the area by the loading docks where they typically have back-up generators, some of the A/C infrastructure, and heavy moving equipment. That type of equipment isn’t uncommon in most large facilities though.
Anyway, just my two cents, but I’d encourage you to see for yourself, and also visit a few similarly sized buildings in order to compare your experience.
michigannfa90@reddit
DFW is the second largest data center market in the United States and top 10 globally… larger than Silicon Valley, Chicago, Arizona, etc etc… only larger Data Center market in the United States is Northern Virginia and they are so much larger we likely won’t ever catch them… so in other words… you’ve lived near or on top of data centers for a very very long time.
PurpleQuantity6688@reddit
Are you Ben Jordan?
No_Landscape_9255@reddit (OP)
ha, no. but i've seen that video.
Wakinghours@reddit
Everyone needs to read this article on the "Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town."
https://time.com/6982015/bitcoin-mining-texas-health/
You might miss it because you think Bitcoin mines are unrelated, when actually the damage is almost identical due to the infrastructure needs.
DaSilence@reddit
You can go and stand next to them.
They don't make any appreciable noise.
https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/texas/dallas/
Mang9@reddit
Go hang out near a gas turbine power plant - that is how they power them with natural gas.
DFW_DADDY@reddit
They are building one near the 635/35 interchange.. I live on the other side of the freeway, I think the freeway will drown out any humm from 2 miles away.
TexasBaconMan@reddit
Are you sure that’s not an Amazon facility?