No Data Centers In My Backyard - by Jasmine Sun

money, power, and populism in the AI buildout

Driving in Wisconsin feels like cruising through Eden. It is unimaginably green given the heat-wave summer. There are fields of corn and clover blossoms and Queen Anne’s lace; in the temperate evenings, fireflies trace and weave star-trails between cottonwood trunks. Everyone we meet is generous, warmhearted, ready to show us the meaning of “Midwestern nice” one free beer at a time. In those halcyon environs, the data centers land like a spaceship crash. Data centers are the most visible, physical manifestations of the AI boom. For a technology that we think of as immaterial, existing only…

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