https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-fight-to-stop-data-center-creep/
"If you listen to the proponents and funders of generative artificial
intelligence, widespread adoption is all but inevitable. It’s not, but the
world is still facing an unprecedented push for more data centers and
supporting infrastructure for the industry. Every call for a new data center
includes another implicit ask: more power. The power demands behind generative
AI are staggering, and they’re only supposed to increase. In Virginia, Georgia
and South Carolina, 65% of new load growth is coming from data centers to fuel
the AI bubble. Generative AI is a tool of authoritarianism in the United
States, but there are ways to push back — and people are doing so right now.
Generative AI shows all the signs of being a bubble that’s eventually going to
burst, and do serious damage to the economy when it does; even the head of
Google’s parent firm has acknowledged that it would hurt the whole economy if
it goes. Most AI startups are losing money; companies investing in AI aren’t
seeing returns. The largest companies are facing major lawsuits over their use
of copyrighted material, and the most famous AI company in the world is burning
cash: It looks like it lost $11.5 billion dollars just in the second quarter of
this 2025.
Operation Stargate, President Donald Trump’s initiative is supposed to fund 10
new data centers, each requiring more power than the whole state of New
Hampshire. The plans are absurd. In order to prove the worth of this
technology, we have to completely rebuild our energy grid and reorient
everything toward data centers. It would be like building the transcontinental
railroad before anybody had even ridden on a steam engine — and in this case,
there’s mounting evidence that generative AI will not be transformative and
lead to general intelligence or even massive economic growth.
Sam Altman has claimed that he will be working on nuclear fusion plants to make
OpenAI’s vision possible. But setting aside his hucksterism, AI boosters are
going to want to do this the old-fashioned way: fossil fuel plants. The AI boom
is being used as an excuse to keep building gas-fueled plants and to delay
mothballing older plants; 17 such facilities are in limbo because of this. For
this administration, supporting data centers is a way to put its finger on the
scales against renewables and to enrich energy corporations that are already
wrecking the environment."
Via Lisa Stranger and Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
