In what school administration is calling “a bold step in school-community integration,” Arcata High School officially broke ground Thursday on a new 98,000-square-foot Anthropic AI data center that will occupy the right two-thirds of the parking lot.
“We are thrilled,” administration said. “This is a win-win. Students get access to free Claude tokens, and the school gets a free 98,000-square-foot space heater.”
When pressed about the possible ecological issues of using 5,000,000,000 watts of energy, the Anthropic Executive and the board stated that the heat generated by the data center could be repurposed for cooking food and heating homes. Additionally, the energy for the data center is generated by “eco-friendly” coal power plants, they said.
This project will reduce the number of parking spaces from 300 to 110, a number the administration says will “be more than enough,” and “support student relationships via carpooling.”
“Not everyone has to drive,” one member of the board said. “This is a wonderful opportunity for students to explore travel alternatives. Biking, walking, and rollerblading have not been ruled out.” Another board member said this will make cars more efficient. “Cold starts won’t be an issue any longer because the parking lot will remain a constant 95 degrees,” they said.
In exchange for the land, each student will be receiving three months of Claude Pro, equivalent to $60 in value.
“I’m actually shaking in excitement,” sophomore Logan Holmes said. “Now I won’t reach my image generation limit when I add laser eyes to reaction images. It’s so funny.” Holmes is an avid supporter of Palantir, and signed the petition in favor of this data center.
“I am hyped to get free Claude code,” senior Owen Kaufman, who this month has burned through 5 million tokens, said. “Now I can vibe code as many AI slop macro tracking apps as I want!”
This data center is estimated to create five local jobs (four of which are to ensure that it doesn’t catch on fire), while replacing over 5,000 jobs, lifting a massive burden of work from our community.
This project is part of a broader effort to expand Palantir and Anthropic data centers into the community forest near Cal Poly Humboldt.
