Why the Data Center PR War Is Getting Worse | Jonas Du

Theo (0:02)

All right, we are back. We are live with Jonas Du, who's a writer at Pirate Wires, covering tech and politics, and a co-organizer of Data After Dark, the legendary, famous, infamous pro data center party in Washington DC that was held, when was it? Like this past Saturday?

Jonas Du (0:19)

This past Saturday.

Theo (0:20)

Yeah, this past Saturday. So we just missed it by a few days being stuck in SF, but it looked kind of awesome. Jonas, welcome.

Jonas Du (0:29)

Thank you for having me, Theo.

Theo (0:31)

So tell us about the origin story. Like, how did this come to be? You know, obviously, there's the anti data center sentiment and the need for sort of a counter backlash. But like, how did this, you know, become a concrete event?

Jonas Du (0:45)

Yes, so this actually started truly organically. This was back in August, near the end of the month, I was with two friends who would later become my two co-hosts. And we were sitting around catching up on a Sunday night. And talking about how fervent the anti data center sentiment seemed to have gotten. This was around the time that Texas was doing executive orders. They had, they had, I think, pulled grid new grid connections for data centers. Pennsylvania was doing executive orders. All sorts of states were trying to impose severe guardrails on data centers. And because of how fast it happened, it was pretty clear to us that this was not coming from a place of rational debate or fact-based policy making. This was more so a response to the public backlash and hysteria around data centers. So we were talking about just how ridiculous it had gotten. And one of us threw out the idea like, hey, why don't we just throw a pro data center party? That would be pretty funny when no one's done such a thing before. And it's kind of random in a very DC way.

And we were going to do it at my house. I host just social gatherings at my row home in DC every other month or so. So we're just going to do it there. And this was about 10 PM on a Sunday. We sent out the invite. Instantly, 40, 50 people had signed up already just amongst our friends. And so it became pretty clear to us that we had struck a chord amongst people that were also similarly frustrated. Two days later, I put it on X, and I couldn't imagine that it would have blown up as much as it did.

And when I announced that we would need sponsors, we need a bigger venue to make this thing actually happen, get everyone who wants to come in the door, I got tons of messages from various companies and organizations and other folks that wanted to get involved.

And so I think the goal we really did show that there is a healthy contingent of young professionals, especially in DC, who are frustrated by the data center hysteria and want to figure out ways to win the PR war on this.

Theo (2:54)

So how was it? Like, what did you think about how it went?

Jonas Du (2:59)

I think it went phenomenal. Obviously, many of you probably saw it got protested. There were three people that infiltrated the party, and during the toast, hopped on stage when they were not permitted to speak. And I think that only added to the drama, and honestly, the fun. I think it showed people these are the tactics that the other side is going to use, jumping up on stage and interrupting folks. But other than that, we had a wonderful time. We had a jazz band downstairs, a DJ upstairs, people were dancing. We had lots of themed cocktails, like Loudoun County, Iced Tea, SMR-Tini, Closed Loop Spritz, and so on.

People really enjoyed that. We had tons of media. That was one of the pieces of feedback I got. It was like, everywhere you looked, there was like a reporter. And I guess journalists will be journalists, but I think it goes to show how much media attention there was for a concept like this. So I think all of the feedback I got in was positive.

So many people now have reached out saying they want to do this in San Francisco, or Austin, or New York. And I think that we're looking to make that happen soon.

Theo (4:10)

Cool, yeah, I mean, I will definitely go to whatever SF1 happens. What about the protestors? Weren't there like protestors that showed up?

Jonas Du (4:20)

Yeah, there were protestors that made an appearance. You could say it was in between toast. One of them jumped up on stage, started shouting. You couldn't really hear what she was saying, but they were saying things about you're using all our water, you're killing these communities, you're using up all our electricity, kind of typical resource-based complaints.