The Six Core Variables and How They Trade Off
Site selection reduces to six variables that recur in every serious evaluation: power, water, fiber, land, incentives, and community. The beginner's mistake is treating them as a checklist of independent boxes. They are not independent. They trade against one another, and the trades are where the real judgment lives. Cheap power in a water-stressed desert. Generous incentives in a community that will fight you. Abundant land far from fiber. Faraday's read: learn the variables first, then learn that the job is managing the tensions between them, because no site wins on all six.
Knowledge check
Name the six core variables in data-center site selection and explain why they must be evaluated together rather than in isolation.
Show the answer
The six are power, water, fiber, land, incentives, and community. They must be evaluated together because they trade off against one another: strength in one dimension often coincides with weakness in another (for example, cheap power in a water-scarce region), so a site's quality depends on the balance of the whole set, not any single factor.