// PC GAMER — GAMING
'It’s so much easier to steal this than to rob a bank': $100,000,000+ worth of AI data center freight reportedly stolen since June
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AI data centers are springing up across the US at an unprecedented rate, and with them comes a number of problems. Aside from the noise, disruption, and environmental concerns, the vast infrastructure projects also require the transport of millions of dollars worth of equipment—and opportunistic thieves are cashing in.
An NBC News report details two audacious data center equipment heists, both involving literal examples of highway robbery. A shipment carrying $13 million worth of server equipment travelling on a section of interstate through the Mojave Desert had its security escort rammed by a separate vehicle, forcing it to stop. The trailer carrying the equipment was later found at a truck yard in California, minus its valuable load.
"The accident was not an accident," says Gerado Pachucha, an ex-member of the LA Country Sheriff's Department cargo criminal apprehension team. "The bad guys wanted that load, so they intentionally took out the escorts."
A second incident, also involving a collision with a security vehicle, led to the loss of another trailer carrying an estimated $10 million worth of server rack components. NBC reports that, according to industry leaders, consultants, and investigators it's spoken to regarding the heists, thieves are estimated to have stolen more than $100 million worth of data center freight since June of this year.
Keith Lewis, head of operations of a cargo theft tracking team at Verisk CargoNet, says "It’s like stealing pure gold bars."
"We’ve seen some of these thefts go up into 30-plus million dollars for one particular shipment. It’s so much easier to steal this than to rob a bank."
Aside from the server racks themselves, data centers also require a vast amount of copper wires, fiber optic cables, RAM modules, storage drives, and various other high-value components that need to be transported to their destination by conventional means.
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"Things that are precursors for the AI data centers: copper, server racks and RAM. Those are the things that are the precursors to build one, so that’s what we’re seeing the big increase in," says Lewis. "It’s the dollar value that’s getting the attention because the product they’re stealing costs so much more."