SF Westfield Mall Being Converted Into AI Data Center
The mall’s iconic spiral escalator will turn from a spectacle for shoppers into a service passage for data center technicians.
The San Francisco Centre, the sprawling downtown complex that was formerly home to the Westfield Mall, will soon be converted into an AI data center.
Once a bustling retail landmark that drew millions of shoppers, the 9-story, 500,000-square-foot mall has fallen victim to the city’s precipitous post-pandemic decline in foot traffic. The former storefronts of Nordstrom and Bloomingdale which will soon be filled to the brim with humming server racks of AI accelerator chips. Meanwhile the mall’s iconic spiral escalator, the first of its kind to be installed in America, will convert from a spectacle for shoppers into a service passage for data center technicians.
The mall’s owners previously explored converting the space into a mix of retail and office space. Spokesperson Jared Reeves told us they soon ran into difficulties with this plan - San Francisco’s downtown already has a record high office vacancy rate that continues to worsen due to a shift to remote work and layoffs attributed to AI.
“When we looked at what was in demand, we discovered a massive opportunity in data center construction,” Jared told us. “I guess if you can’t make money renting to office workers, you might as well make money off of the AI that’s replacing them.”
The San Francisco Centre proved to be a great fit for data center conversion thanks to its industrial power hookup, physical proximity (ie low network latency) to nearby tech companies, and an experienced security team experienced in fending off the tweakers, vandals, and homeless inhabitants of the apocalyptic post-pandemic landscape that is downtown San Francisco.
Despite local uproar over the continued “AI-shittification” of the city, the Centre’s new tenants have kept their corporate identity a secret from the public. Although the new data center will be inaccessible to passers-by and guarded by heavily armed security, the new tenants have agreed to open a small cafe area that will be open to the public. There, a robotic barista will serve coffee and matcha drinks, make small talk with customers with the help of a large language model, and aggressively upsell gift cards for ChatGPT subscriptions.