"...and the new world of artificial intelligence..."
I DO assume that you know the current estimate is for $2 Trillion USD to be spent on new data centers to house all those server farm hardware, right? You DO know that most old buildings are, even with retrofit, totally unsuitable for retrofit for this purpose. Thus, a LOT of new building is going to happen as all those AI instances are going to need a whole lot of space.
Heh! I can't WAIT to see you do a post on the electrical grid demands this will take. SMRs, everybody?
AND!
"...as AI replaces “armies of analysts” banging away in Excel spreadsheets..."
Except for the smallest firms (or even departments), this shows how far behind you are on real business intelligence ("BI") software tools. Sure, ad hoc stuff would use a spreadsheet, but as a famous person in the US is wont to say: "C'mon, man!".
Some buildings are going to be more difficult to re-use than others, Hospitals & Schools come to mind. Often the "best" the owners may offer is to "save" are the facades of these kinds of structures.
Having said that, I think your point is valid in that the re-use of some older office buildings can be reimagined as mini server farms. Take for example the 100+ year old Whitney Block in Toronto, part of the Provincial Government office buildings in and around Queens Park. As a heritage building, it can't be demolished. Due to many constrains imposed by modern building codes, the Whitney Block's use as either office or residential uses are almost impossible without impacting the heritage elements.
If this building was rather used for government servers, building code restraints would likely not apply, & the building could not only be preserved, but find a new life. I'm sure there are many similar examples around the world.
One of the transactional impacts of remote work is that employers will in effect push off on to employees the costs of providing a proper space within which they can work. Social media during the pandemic was full of conversations about improvising home offices and converting unused guest bedrooms, etc., all out of pocket for workers. On the other hand, the new McMansions going up around me finally had at least one justification as the families in them had to find space for both remote work and remote schooling.
“… employers will in effect push off on to employees the costs of providing a proper space within which they can work …”
Sorry, but most of the WFH phenomenon was done by people who didn’t want to go to a centralized workplace to earn their bread and then pitched a fit when asked to return to the office because productivity slowed and the boss wanted to ensure they were doing what they were being paid to do. It was a choice that THEY made; the employer isn’t obligated to provide a certain standard of WFH “wants” especially when there’s perfectly acceptable office space being underutilized .
It would be interesting to find some numbers - I've got friends in the IT world who fit that model, but I've also got lots of friends who were simply smart users of IT who could make the adjustment. With either group, the fact remains that many companies were looking at paying less for real estate. BTW, it's an old model, my family tree includes a number of individuals in the old cloth trades who went through the days when the loom was in a back room and you were paid by the piece. The big factories and mills came along when they figured out a power source to run a bunch of looms etc altogether in one place.
Hardly ALL workers had to pay out of pocket. A lot of companies provided hardware and subsidies (like internet connections) - some even furniture. But, point taken - not all companies did so.
"...and the new world of artificial intelligence..."
I DO assume that you know the current estimate is for $2 Trillion USD to be spent on new data centers to house all those server farm hardware, right? You DO know that most old buildings are, even with retrofit, totally unsuitable for retrofit for this purpose. Thus, a LOT of new building is going to happen as all those AI instances are going to need a whole lot of space.
Heh! I can't WAIT to see you do a post on the electrical grid demands this will take. SMRs, everybody?
AND!
"...as AI replaces “armies of analysts” banging away in Excel spreadsheets..."
Except for the smallest firms (or even departments), this shows how far behind you are on real business intelligence ("BI") software tools. Sure, ad hoc stuff would use a spreadsheet, but as a famous person in the US is wont to say: "C'mon, man!".
just quoting the Globe and Mail, Canada's national Newspaper there....
You did quote G&M, but the quote you pulled didn't mention EXCEL so that was YOUR word, sir!
And the article is paywalled so we have no idea of what's in it.
Some buildings are going to be more difficult to re-use than others, Hospitals & Schools come to mind. Often the "best" the owners may offer is to "save" are the facades of these kinds of structures.
Having said that, I think your point is valid in that the re-use of some older office buildings can be reimagined as mini server farms. Take for example the 100+ year old Whitney Block in Toronto, part of the Provincial Government office buildings in and around Queens Park. As a heritage building, it can't be demolished. Due to many constrains imposed by modern building codes, the Whitney Block's use as either office or residential uses are almost impossible without impacting the heritage elements.
If this building was rather used for government servers, building code restraints would likely not apply, & the building could not only be preserved, but find a new life. I'm sure there are many similar examples around the world.
One of the transactional impacts of remote work is that employers will in effect push off on to employees the costs of providing a proper space within which they can work. Social media during the pandemic was full of conversations about improvising home offices and converting unused guest bedrooms, etc., all out of pocket for workers. On the other hand, the new McMansions going up around me finally had at least one justification as the families in them had to find space for both remote work and remote schooling.
“… employers will in effect push off on to employees the costs of providing a proper space within which they can work …”
Sorry, but most of the WFH phenomenon was done by people who didn’t want to go to a centralized workplace to earn their bread and then pitched a fit when asked to return to the office because productivity slowed and the boss wanted to ensure they were doing what they were being paid to do. It was a choice that THEY made; the employer isn’t obligated to provide a certain standard of WFH “wants” especially when there’s perfectly acceptable office space being underutilized .
It would be interesting to find some numbers - I've got friends in the IT world who fit that model, but I've also got lots of friends who were simply smart users of IT who could make the adjustment. With either group, the fact remains that many companies were looking at paying less for real estate. BTW, it's an old model, my family tree includes a number of individuals in the old cloth trades who went through the days when the loom was in a back room and you were paid by the piece. The big factories and mills came along when they figured out a power source to run a bunch of looms etc altogether in one place.
"...all out of pocket for workers..."
Hardly ALL workers had to pay out of pocket. A lot of companies provided hardware and subsidies (like internet connections) - some even furniture. But, point taken - not all companies did so.