# Data Centers vs AI Factories > Source: > Published: 2026-07-28 19:01:01+00:00 Member-only story # Data Centers vs AI Factories ## What’s inside a data center, the infrastructure behind AI ### Intro A [ data center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center) is a physical facility (room or building) packed with computers used for the storage and processing of digital information. Data centers are the backbone of the internet, required to run websites, cloud applications, and AI. But recently, there has been a growing demand to transform the traditional data center model and accommodate the massive power consumption of new AI products. The first data center was built in 1945 as a massive room-sized computer at the University of Pennsylvania to operate the [ENIAC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC) (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) for the US Army. Then, in the 1990s, IBM and Apple [microcomputers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcomputer) (ancestors of modern PCs) came into the scene, drastically reducing the space required for IT operations, and filling old mainframe computer rooms. These smaller devices became known as “servers” and the rooms as “data centers”. With the advent of [cloud computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing) in the early 2000s, the old data center landscape was significantly disrupted, allowing organizations to access computing resources on-demand, over the internet…