A proposed data center in downtown Oakland is the latest artificial intelligence project to face backlash, but proponents say this one’s different.
Developer Behring Companies is planning to use a portion of an almost 83,000 square-foot 4-story building at 415 20th St. as a data center to complement a larger AI campus. About 20,000 square-foot would be used for the data center, according to Behring’s plans.
The building used to be a supercomputing complex for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Behring Companies’ CEO Colin Behring says those operations are not different from what the project proposes.
“Nothing has changed, and our proposal at this point is to use the same building doing what it used to do the same way,” said Behring, who spoke at a Friday press conference alongside Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife. “While it might be big headlines to talk about data centers, this project is very much different.”…