Lennox high schoolers, club asking if ‘data centers can be done right?’

By Jackson Dircks | SDPB

Can data centers be done right? That’s the question one group of high schoolers in Lennox, South Dakota, are trying to answer for their community.

“One of the big things is water usage, coolage, and electricity usage. Can you explain how it’s different for a data center than it would be for some other industrial usage,” asked one Lennox, SD, resident Monday, March 16. She had questions that needed answers. That seems to be the general tone around data centers in South Dakota. At the Lennox Digital Age Club’s first informational meeting, they’re seeking those questions. It’s a proactive approach, as no data center companies have announced any intention to locate in Lennox.

The Digital Age Club is a group of about 20 high schoolers creating a data center feasibility study for the city. They’re working with industry experts to find answers the community is anxious to hear. The study was approved by Lennox City Council last month.

They’re tasked with researching information about the available infrastructure and resources, community/environmental impacts, commercial feasibility and educational outreach.

The public discourse over data centers make it clear how much this type of information is needed. Governments from county commissions to the state Legislature to Washington, D.C. have debated over data centers. But there’s often more questions than answers.

That’s where Digital Age Club comes in.

The group is led, and in a broader sense, taught, by Lennox School Board President Scott Sandal and his wife, Heidi Sandal. Scott built a smaller-scale data center in Yankton in the early 2000s. He explained what the Digital Age Club’s purpose is here.

“To give it back to the city council to say, ‘Here’s all the information we’ve found. Now it’s up to you to make a decision if somebody comes knocking,’” Sandal said. “That’s all we’re after.”

Another advantage to the Digital Age Club’s model is it’s giving students new opportunities. They’re discussing what the future, in this case the ‘digital age,’ even is.

Jacob Carlson is one of the students looking into the issue. He’s not planning to work in AI but still considers their conversations meaningful.

“Right now, I’m looking towards mechanical engineering, but I found that it could be pretty interesting just to learn more about it,” Carlson said.

While the club’s still in its infancy, Carlson called the conversation’s they’ve had “interesting.”

“We get to kind of see a lot of different perspectives on these things, and then we get to kind of in towards other things that could have benefit to the conversation and really help people in what they know,” Carlson said.

Carlson acknowledges there’s no data centers knocking right now, but hopes the study helps Lennox in some way.

“I just hope it brings an opportunity maybe down the road, whether that be 10 years or 20 years, but a chance sometime down the road, or do something,” Carlson said.

Others are seeing the tree bear fruit today. School Board President Sandal said he’s seen students tackling industry issues head on.

“I’ve had some students already look at some of the problem equations that have been presented like overheating,” Sandal said. “And they’re already in their minds, some of the engineering students, saying, ‘Well, can we bury it?’ Right? Can we take it in ground and do things?’ Their minds are starting to get creative around what are possible solutions. That to me is where the reward comes in.”

It’s modeled after the school district’s mission statement: “To work together to inspire lifelong learners who innovate, persevere, and collaborate to solve the challenges of tomorrow.” Sandal called the Digital Age Club an embodiment of those sentiments.

The group is receiving recognition across the country for its work and efforts.

Infrastructure Masons, more commonly called iMasons, is a nonprofit professional association of more than 6,000 people across the globe. iMasons uses the network for skill development, leadership growth and knowledge sharing targeted towards digital infrastructure’s future. The consortium is taking a global look at if a data center can go into a community and be a good steward to that community. They’ve invited the Digital Age Club to a Data Center Dynamics student think tank and sought collaboration on the issue.

The group’s also being asked to work on industry innovation. Sandal said engineering students from Stanford are also seeking collaboration with the Digital Age Club.

“They’re trying to figure out how do companies manage IT assets better because it’s been a burn rate for years. Just use them, throw them away, use them, throw them away, use them, throw them away. These students are researching how do you not do that,” Sandal said. “How do you be a better steward in the sustainability of IT assets short-term, long-term. That group of students wants to collaborate with this group of students to work together to figure this out. That’s what’s happening already.”

All of those connections have happened “organically,” Sandal said, without him reaching out to people. Though, he admits he used his personal LinkedIn to share the group’s work which has gained some reach. Sandal attributes that to the small-knit community the data center industry has.

The group is also taking ‘field trips’ to local data centers and other tech-heavy places to learn more about the digital age.

If all goes well, Sandal expects the Digital Age Club could be a model adopted beyond just Lennox.

“Other communities have reached out and said, ‘I want this in my community for my students to be exposed to something very similar’ because the challenge and the question that’s out there is a very hot topic. But nobody’s leaning more towards the digital age kind of concept to understand why it exists.”

Sandal said connecting real world issues, like data centers, with the digital age can help both the students and the Lennox community.

The group hopes to have the study done before school heads out for summer.

The study isn’t keeping an eye primarily on bigger data centers. Those are called ‘hyperscale data centers,’ and have created controversy across the nation.

Lennox, a city just under 2,500 people according to 2020 census data, has had a front row seat to such controversy in South Dakota’s data. Situated 30-minutes outside of Sioux Falls, residents have seen debates unfold about hyperscale data centers. That’s due to a data center proposed in Sioux Falls near Brandon. It’s expected to consume hundreds of megawatts, potentially up to 500 MW. That would be enough to power 50,000 homes for an entire year, according to the Dakota Scout. The proposed facility has received lots of pushbacks at the Sioux Falls City Council, primarily at a January council meeting that lasted over six hours.

That’s the impetus for Lennox’s current approach to data centers.

“That thing is mammoth. I don’t know if there were studies done. I don’t know the details. I do know the two people bringing it forward are nothing more than land speculators trying to get ahead of a curve, trying to get ahead of something. They don’t have a clue how to build a data center. They don’t have a clue how to run one, most likely don’t have a clue and understanding what it is,” Sandal said. “So, there’s pushback, right? Because the community doesn’t know what’s coming. We’re going to do differently here.”

Hyperscale data centers used to store data fort artificial intelligence technologies have been the talk of many communities throughout the nation. While definitions aren’t concrete and often debated, hyperscale data centers use at least 50-100 megawatts (MW) of power, all the way up to 1,000 MW.

Sandal offers a different definition: A hyperscale data center is 100 MW and offers 75 kilowatts of power per rack.

“That’s about 75 homes in the size of your refrigerator just to do a comparison,” Sandal said. “Imagine if you have 75 homes’ power pulling from your refrigerator alone, just to do a comparison.”

Though the feasibility study isn’t completed, Sandal estimates the Lennox community has available infrastructure for a maximum of 10 MW.

“I’m not even sold at 10 MW because if we do 10, does that even allow for other development? Will that hog all the power? So, is it more like 5 MW that would even be plausible?” Sandal asked when discussing the baseline of Lennox’s power capabilities.

That number may not catch headlines, but it gives the city a ‘benchmark.’

“If somebody comes in and says, ‘I’m going to build a 50-megawatt facility here,” Sandal told the community. “[The community] already has the benchmark. You can say, ‘Well, now you need to pay for that.’”

A 10 MW facility wouldn’t fall under Sandal’s definition for an AI-hyperscale data center. His focus for Lennox is on the other, less debated data centers. He calls these ‘traditional enterprise data centers.’ They house medical and bank records, research, etc. They’re often “colocated,” meaning there are multiple locations as back up in case one was to fail. That also means multiple companies could be storing data in the same facility at different racks.

Sandal said the traditional enterprise data centers are where a lot of the demand and opportunity could be, not in AI data centers.

“If you take AI hyperscalers and rip that out of the equation, just data center growth by itself is growing at about 15-20% per year annually. Just the demand of what we store, what we save, our backups, that continues to grow at that pace without AI. That’s some of the problems in this race to power that we have.”

That’s largely on the backs of everyone with a cellphone or utilizing technology because the data associated with those things needs to be stored somewhere. Anyone using technology is contributing to what Sandal calls the digital age, and thus everyone is contributing to the growing need for data centers nationwide.