The AI infrastructure opportunities of Slough: a poem
There was an article in El Reg this morning entitled The role of Slough in AI infrastructure. Slough, for the uninitiated, is a town between London and Reading in the south of England, famous for being quite dull and somewhat downtrodden; its huge industrial estate was the setting for the original, UK version of The Office.
In homage to Sir John Betjeman’s eponymous poem, I have adapted it for 2024 and the positioning of the town as a leader in digital infrastructure.
Come, friendly data and fall on Slough!
AI is replacing humans now,
We want to give the town a “wow”.
Swarm over, servers!
Come, server admins from the Phillipines
Those stood-up, sprinted Agile teams
Working all the time behind the scenes
Managed by silent observers.
Turn the warehouses of the town
Into a paradise without a frown
Rent a server that is never down
For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin
To edit text all day in Vim
And afterwards, have with the team
Several desk beers.
And give him a desk of finest MDF
And a hint of espresso on his breath
May the Thames never be the Lethe
In delight he shall yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The latest technological fad;
They may say “Nvidia is rad”,
They only know Intel.
It’s not their fault they do not know
Websites ending in .io,
Commuting back and forth they go
To Maidenhead.
And talk of containers and Kubernetes
May, to many, always amaze
Councillors, eager to appraise
These tin huts of data instead.
In rack mounts, they care
To keep modern the firmware
While customers on Jira tickets declare
The warmth of the reboot.
Come, friendly data, and fall on Slough
It needs 21st-century knowhow.
The tech startups are coming now;
Perhaps even Revolut.
Hope you like it. Oh, and don’t forget to visit Slough.
