About this episode

The episode discusses the backlash against AI data centers in small towns across America, featuring insights from journalist Jasmine Sun.

Small towns across America are revolting against massive AI data centers. SUPPORT MY WORK: Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at https://www.usermag.co Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz To listen to the full episode and get access to more bonus episodes, an ad-free listening experience, and my weekly newsletter, subscribe to my Patreon or Substack 👇🏻 Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at ⁠https://www.usermag.co⁠ Support my work on Patreon: ⁠http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz⁠ In this episode of Power User, journalist Jasmine Sun breaks down her on-the-ground reporting across Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York to uncover why Republicans and Democrats are joining forces to halt Big Tech’s infrastructure expansion. From secret NDAs signed by local officials to skyrocketing electricity bills, strained power grids, and broken economic promises, we examine how the demands of generative AI are affecting local communities. We also dive into the real environmental impacts (from water consumption myths to the real problems related to natural gas) and discuss how the current compute buildout is creating a speculative bubble. Jasmine gets into how distrust…

People in this episode

Host: Taylor Lorenz

Guest: Jasmine Sun

Topics covered

• AI data centers
• local community impact
• political collaboration
• environmental concerns
• Big Tech distrust
• economic implications

Keywords

• AI
• data centers
• local communities
• politics
• environment
• Big Tech
• infrastructure
• economic promises
• electricity bills
• speculative bubble

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Big Tech, Foxconn

Places: Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, United States, China

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