View the layout and components that make up a typical data center

Watch a time-lapse of the construction of a data center

After the external structure of a data center is built, cooling systems are installed, followed by interior offices and other rooms. Before installing racks of servers and other equipment, floors are raised beneath where they will be installed to create space for cold fluid to be pumped into the hardware and to facilitate cable management.

Most data centers rely on the local power grid to feed power-hungry computer equipment

These facilities house rows of vertical racks containing multiple types of hardware, including servers that provide 24/7 access to online applications, services, and data. In a hyperscale center with thousands of these racks, the annual electricity used is estimated to equal that of 400,000 electric vehicles.

Data center types vary based on location and the workloads they manage

Enterprise data centers are built on-premises and afford businesses greater control over the management and security of their data. Cloud data centers are built off-site and share their resources with millions of users through an internet connection, with the largest—hyperscale data centers—spanning millions of square feet. Managed data centers offer off-site hardware that companies can lease.

Data centers require interconnected server- and building-level cooling systems

Computer equipment can be cooled by circulating cold air or water through the equipment racks, siphoning the heated fluid into a heat exchanger. This exchanger transfers thermal energy to building cooling systems, which can dispose of the heat by evaporative cooling—the way humans cool off by sweating—or via air conditioning.

Today's massive data centers evolved from single-room mainframes

Punch card computers from the late 1940s were used to store and process a company's data locally before the advent of desktop computers. As the amount of data and company sizes increased alongside the miniaturization of technology, mainframes were replaced by local server rooms and external facilities with interconnected servers running cloud-based and AI software.

View a map of US data center infrastructure in 2025

Thousands of data centers across the country have already been built, with more under construction or planned. Facilities are connected via transmission and fiber optic lines, with the latter spanning an estimated length of 160 million miles.

Research suggests AI data centers may be creating microclimate heat islands

An analysis of satellite data from 2004 to 2024 showed that land surface temperatures in the areas surrounding AI data centers typically increase by an average of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) after they begin running. Across the 6,000 global data centers analyzed by the study, temperatures increased by as much as 9.1 degrees Celsius (16.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Google data centers possess six layers of security

Property boundaries, such as anti-climb fencing, overlapping cameras, vehicle crash barriers, and circulating patrols, are coupled with lobby iris scans and ID and badge checks. The security operations center monitors individuals throughout their visit, including the less than 1% of Google users who ever receive permission to visit the data center floor.

Modular data centers can be transported on a truck for rapid deployment

Bypassing the complications involved in building larger facilities over the course of several years, such as construction costs and permits, these pre-fabricated, self-contained pods, roughly the size of shipping containers, can carry thousands of graphics processing units for small- and medium-scale AI-related tasks.

A basement of mechanical systems—collectively called the technosphere—supports B2

Twenty-six underground air handlers heat, cool, filter and manage the humidity of the air across the biomes of Biosphere 2. The above-ground Energy Center complex provides continuous power to these and other systems, including heating and cooling water for laboratory experiments and personal use.

Take a 360-degree tour of a Google data center

The Bomb-proof, Cold War-era New York data center inspiring spy movies

At 33 Thomas Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, a 45-story concrete tower with no windows stands imperiously over the city. Inside, 18 floors of telecommunications technology have hummed for decades. The building's purpose—to protect US comms from nuclear fallout—and its design have played into spy movie plotlines. Dive into the building's curious role in pop culture with this long read.

Explore a typical layout of an emergency department

This architectural diagram illustrates the layout of an emergency area. It provides insights into a typical emergency room organizational system to provide context for patients as they flow from entry through triage into treatment.

Manage the control room of a virtual nuclear power plant

This interactive takes you on a tour of a virtual plant before handing you the keys to the control room. Challenge yourself to produce enough energy to meet demand while avoiding a nuclear meltdown.

Learn why electrical substations are needed to provide safe electricity with minimal energy loss

These typically fenced-off facilities with steel boxes or cylinders topped with cone-like caps house circuit breakers, fuses, and switches that can isolate sections of the grid to prevent electrical failures from spreading. Substations use transformers to modify electrical voltage and are customized to the generation, transmission, and distribution networks they interconnect.

All computers are defined by their ability to input, store, process, and output data

From wooden machines to wearable tech, computers have changed a lot in appearance, but they all still perform the same essential tasks. Early computers were made of wood and metal—some were so big that they filled entire rooms just to solve simple math problems.

Watch a tour of an integrated circuit fabrication plant

Explore the protocols in place to ensure clean rooms have no dust to jeopardize the integrity of silicon wafers as they are transformed into working microchips. Layering, photolithography, etching, and chemical vapor deposition are shown alongside digital visualizations.

Images of quantum computers often depict dilution refrigerators

While quantum computers themselves can have a microchip of silicon spin qubits or other trapped particles that make up quantum computing's basic unit, these components are too small to see on their own. However, such chips are located at the base of chandelier-shaped machines that keep temperatures near absolute zero.

An explanation of TCP/IP, which helps transmit data across the internet like a club sandwich

The system consists of several layers—application, transport, internet, and network—each responsible for specific tasks. These include interacting with a web browser, checking for errors, sending packets of data across various networks to avoid congestion on their way to a destination address, and managing the transmission of information across hardware, such as an Ethernet cable.

View the 55 ECVs used to describe Earth's atmospheric conditions

Essential climate variables include physical, chemical, and biological variables that meaningfully contribute to Earth's climate and how it changes with time. Many of these variables influence one another through feedback mechanisms across Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, and geosphere.

Engineering tall structures requires managing wind, earthquakes, and other destabilizing factors

Reinforced concrete, energy dampers, braced frames, flexible structures, and aerodynamic decks were among the methods implemented when building structures such as the Shanghai Tower, the Texas Super Skyscraper, and the South Rangitīkei Viaduct.

Tour Tencent's sprawling headquarters focused on tech and health

Tencent has a massive headquarters in China to match its sizable market capitalization. Featuring 40% less carbon consumption and emissions, the building features facial recognition for security, swimming pools and a fitness track, time management apps, and more.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Go behind the scenes of a 911 dispatch center

This video follows a dispatcher at a Colorado communications center serving over 1,600 square miles across four counties, showing the constant communication and relentless pace of a 24-hour shift on the other end of your emergency call.

Explore tips from the American Red Cross on preparing for a tornado

If you live in a region prone to tornadoes, have a plan to retreat to a safe room built to withstand strong winds, such as an underground shelter or a windowless room at the lowest level of a study building, in case of a tornado warning. Having a stay-at-home kit with non-perishable food and water, medications, batteries and chargers, and a battery-powered radio is also essential.

Smart cities support interdepartmental goals by facilitating shared infrastructure

Instead of working in isolation, municipal departments can share data, such as lighting and telecom needs, seamlessly and collaborate to solve larger-scale problems together. Integrating public feedback systems can further improve city services and sustainability.

Explore what it's like inside a patient isolation unit, used in situations such as treating a patient or suspected patient with Ebola.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

Poison ivy's rash-causing compound is found in the plant's roots, stem, and leaves—so coming into contact with any part of the plant can lead to rashes for the 85% of people who are allergic to it.