(TNS) — “Data center” has become a pejorative term to many across North Carolina, but the projects motivating people to pack town halls and demand construction moratoriums have generally been the so-called hyperscale AI campuses, which draw 100 megawatts or more at peak.
Neighbors near the town of Apex recently rallied against a local 300-megawatt proposal until the developer behind this Wake County site withdrew in March. Edgecombe County residents are still fighting an even bigger data center plan in Eastern North Carolina. And while Amazon won’t share the projected energy use of its incoming Richmond County campus, it’s safe to say this promised $10 billion data center will be hyperscale.
But other AI data centers are much smaller — if still controversial. Last month, Duke University began building a “Graphics Processing Unit center” on its Central Campus in Durham, a project first reported by Inside Climate News. In a statement to The News & Observer, Duke wrote it plans to open this two-story structure next year to facilitate research. Work crews were on the site Thursday…