How big can these data centres get

Implementation
1

As AI has gotten better, it has required more data centres, and as I have just seen here, city-sized data centres are supposedly becoming a reality, or at least the current size of data centres means that this talk is becoming more realistic: The Guardian | Zuckerberg says Meta will build data center the size of Manhattan in latest AI push

My question is thus: how do we deal with all the infrastructure(energy, water, land, building materials, internet access, etc) required if data centres are to reach this size, because a “manhattan-sized data centre” is roughly 59.1 km^2 of land. Manhattan itself has a population of 1.6 million, and this land is instead for one data centre. It seems a major issue because this is city-level planning for a single data centre, which is an enormous task to do in the first place. Compounding on it is that these data centres will probably need city-level resources in energy and water for them to operate effectively. Thus, how is this even possible is my question Is it necessary? Is there also other, more pressing uses for this infrastructure instead(such as housing or other industries)?

2

I think it can be done strategically, but needs a substantial amount of forethought. For example, we could build data centers in areas where people don’t want to live - say, a cold region, given the heat that these server rooms put off. It could also be an opportunity to put it near where people live, if the priority is to bolster job creation and infrastructure. There are a lot of ways to dice it, but money will flow where it’s best used - either to cheap land for data centers, or high-demand areas where people/businesses want them.