Data Centers Are Replacing Offices

🧩 Throughout the 20th century, the office was a symbol of progress. It reflected an era in which the main source of value was the human being — their intellect, communication, and decision-making ability. Office buildings defined the power of corporations, shaped the appearance of cities, and set the social rhythm of an entire century.

Today, this model is rapidly becoming obsolete. The “office civilization” is being replaced by the civilization of machine intelligence. If the center of value creation used to be people gathered in collectives, now it is computing power concentrated in data centers. The U.S. is already investing in data centers at levels comparable to office tower construction, and in the coming years, investments in “boxes with servers” will fully surpass those in skyscrapers. This is not just a statistical shift — it is a paradigm change for the entire global economy.

The Office Era: Where the Knowledge Economy Was Born

In the 20th century, the office was not only a workplace but also a form of social infrastructure. It was where innovation emerged, deals were made, and knowledge was exchanged. Cities grew around offices, transport systems were built, and the culture of “nine-to-five” work was formed.

Offices played a coordinating role: they connected people and processes, transforming individual efforts into corporate results. They created career paths, formed hierarchies, and ultimately provided social status.

But with the rise of digital technologies, the office has ceased to be essential. Work has moved to the cloud, communication — to messengers, and management — to algorithms. The corporate human is giving way to the algorithmic system, where the role of personality is gradually fading.

The Data Center as the Factory of the 21st Century

A data center is the new industrial facility of the digital age. If factories once produced physical goods, data centers produce computations — the key resource of the post-industrial world.

At first glance, they are dull, windowless concrete buildings where machines, not people, do the work. But it is here that the true production of modernity takes place: neural network training, data processing, and decision-making by AI systems.

If the office was a cathedral of human productivity, the data center is a temple of machine productivity. Efficiency here scales not by the number of employees but by the number of servers and megawatts of energy.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global energy consumption by data centers will nearly double — from 415 TWh in 2024 to 945 TWh by 2030. The U.S. and China will account for up to 80% of that growth — comparable to the energy use of entire nations.

The Computation Economy: A New Productive Force

Classical economics identified three factors of production — land, labor, and capital. Today, a fourth is added: computing power.

Algorithms, machine-learning models, and artificial intelligence have become the foundation of value creation. Just as the steam engine transformed 19th-century industry, computation is transforming the economy of the 21st.

According to McKinsey, AI’s contribution to the global economy could reach $13 trillion by 2030. This makes computing power a strategic resource — equal to oil or electricity. Control over it is a matter not only of economics but of national security.

The Price of Progress: Energy, Water, and Carbon

However, the digital industry requires colossal resources. In 2023 alone, U.S. data centers consumed 176 TWh of electricity — more than the entire country of Norway. By 2028, their share in the national energy balance may reach 12%.

They also emitted over 105 million tons of CO₂ — equivalent to all U.S. aviation. Cooling servers requires about 66 billion liters of water annually, creating environmental conflicts in arid regions.

Experts warn: if governments fail to transition computing power to renewable energy, the environmental costs may outweigh all the economic benefits of digital growth.

A New Social Structure: Humans on the Sidelines

The shift from offices to data centers is not just architectural — it’s societal.

Offices provided millions of jobs, social connections, and identity. Data centers, in contrast, require only small teams of engineers and operators. The rest is done by code.

Goldman Sachs predicts that up to 300 million jobs could be automated by 2030. Finance, analytics, marketing, and logistics are at the greatest risk.

This means that the social impact of automation may rival the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century — but without mass creation of new jobs.

The Geopolitics of Computation

Control over computing power has become the new arena of global competition. The U.S. controls about one-third of global capacity, China is rapidly catching up, and Europe is betting on “green” data centers.

Experts at the Brookings Institution believe that the struggle for computation will be the new equivalent of the oil wars of the 20th century. Whoever controls computing power controls algorithms, data, and decisions.

Finale: The Turning Point of 2026

The 20th century was the age of offices. The 21st century is becoming the age of data centers — where human labor gives way to machine intelligence.

Yet the key question remains: can societies redistribute the benefits of the digital revolution, or will we end up in a world where wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few tech corporations?

🔍 Data centers are not just warehouses of servers. They are the new factories of humanity, where the economy of machine intelligence is being created. And the turning point of 2026 marks the moment when humanity will face, for the first time, the full consequences of its own invention.