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Why American data centers can't plug in

worksinprogress.co · 4,543 words · saved by 2 readers

The AI buildout is bottlenecked by energy. But America has the electricity to power its data centers; the problem is getting it to them.

One of the most expensive projects in history is under construction in Abilene, Texas. This joint venture, Stargate, is the flagship of a bigger project by the same name led by OpenAI and Softbank, and is expected to cost well over $40 billion for a high-performance computing campus that will train new generations of AI models. Stargate is just one major project in one of the biggest investment booms in history, driven by the belief that increasingly powerful AI models can deliver explosive economic growth. But it will require enormous amounts of electricity to work: Stargate is expected to…

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