The AI boom runs on electricity
Data centers are the factories of artificial intelligence, and they are hungry for power, water and chips. Here is what's really happening, who's winning, and what it means for your electric bill and your town.
Plain-English explainer by Joe Miller, a nuclear engineer. Not investment advice. Figures are the latest public numbers we could find and change fast; sources are at the bottom of each page.
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The topics
Five are free for everyone. Five are for members. New topics are added as they're finished.
1. Will AI data centers raise your electric bill?
Why bills are climbing in some states, how a data center far away reaches your meter, and what states are doing about it.
2. Why Big Tech is buying nuclear power plants
Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta are restarting reactors and backing new ones. A nuclear engineer sorts what's real from the hype.
3. Inside a data center
What happens when you ask AI a question: the buildings, chips, power and cooling behind the answer.
4. The chip war
How tiny chips became a national security issue: Nvidia, Taiwan, export bans and smuggling.
5. Can China win at AI without America's best chips?
DeepSeek, cheaper models, and whether the export bans are working.
6. The AI race is really a power race
Who can build power plants fast enough, and why it may decide the winner.
7. Water: the hidden cost of AI
How much water data centers use, where they're being built, and the local fights.
8. Where America's AI is being built, state by state
Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Georgia and more: the towns winning jobs and the towns saying no.
9. China builds power plants fast
China's pace on power and nuclear, and what America would have to change to keep up.
10. What happens to AI in a blackout, an EMP or a war?
Data centers as targets, grid attacks, Taiwan, and the backup power behind the cloud.
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