Greetings, AI Thinkers,
AI isn’t just transforming how we work — it’s increasingly transforming where we work.
For decades, real estate meant skyscrapers, office parks, and corporate campuses.
Now, one chart tells a different story: office construction is falling fast while data centers are skyrocketing.
In this guest post, James Eagle — a long-time friend with a talent for visualizing ideas — illustrates the rise of data center investment versus the decline of office space.
In short, if you are into office space, better think quickly about how to adapt.
Let’s Think,
Dr. Yesha Sivan and the MindLi Team
P.S. Feedback? Email me.
Spark of the Week: AI Rebuilds Real Estate — One chart says it all: Data centers up, office space down (Source: Guest post by James Eagle)
AI isn’t just transforming how we work — it’s increasingly transforming where we work.
For decades, real estate meant skyscrapers, office parks, and corporate campuses.
I’m pleased to share this Chart from James Eagle, a leader in visualization.
I recently met James in London over Thai food to discuss modern thinking challenges — and particularly how visual thinking can capture people’s attention and encourage them to think.
In this case, his original post includes animation that demonstrates the dynamics [1].
The US spends almost as much building data centres as it does building offices. In a few quarters, these lines will cross. When they do, it might represent a profound shift in how we think about economic productivity.
We could be ushering in a new factor of production, to sit alongside labour, capital, and land. So this chart isn’t about construction. It is about where future economic output will be created.
The office was about concentrating human beings. A place to marshal human labour. Data centres are about concentrating the computation needed for AI, which could reduce the need for more labour in the future.
We could be entering an era where productivity is extracted less from people and more from silicon.
That shift has consequences. Offices shaped our cities and our urban lives. We built subways, downtown centre, coffee shops, and restaurants because of them. They even influenced the way we dress when we go to work.
Data centres will shape our energy grids, our use of water, our land politics, and even our geopolitics (and possibly future wars). They are invisible in daily life, yet they may end up shaping our future more profoundly than the tallest skyscrapers ever did.
P.S., Reach out to James and mention that Yesha sent you
James has created a Discord community where data visualisation enthusiasts can actually talk, share, and group-chat together in a more informal environment.
No algorithms. Just real people helping each other create better data visualisations.
Who should join? Anyone who is passionate about data, charts and animated data visualisations (analysts, marketing experts, portfolio managers, medical professionals, data scientists etc.)
Let’s build something better together: discord.gg/Vez9kkS2Nw
More Information:
- [1] James’ original post on real estate and data centers:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jameseagle_the-us-spends-almost-as-much-building-data-activity-7364514199240110080-cUBJ
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