There is an increased public discussion about the race to build datacenters in the USA that are part of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) race for superiority. There are multiple facets within the discussion and some things to consider that might not be at the forefront, yet.
Overall, there is a global race to build the best AI system that is not dissimilar to the nuclear arms race. Arguably the use of AI as a weapon is one possibility; while the second aspect surrounds strategic economic power.
The USA is poised very favorably in this AI race due to the advanced tech industry in America and recent national security moves made by President Trump in the tech sector surrounding strategic critical minerals and domestic chip production. However, no one is quite sure where China is in their AI development and last year’s explosive revelation around China’s “Deepseek” model shocked the U.S. tech industry due to its advanced intelligence prowess.
With China and the USA both in this AI race, and the need for massive investment in datacenters to do the processing needed for an artificial intelligence brain of such significant capacity, there is a sense of urgency in the tech industry that is surfacing around the country. Simultaneously, with datacenters becoming more controversial, suddenly the geopolitical intelligence operations enter the picture.
Currently, it is well accepted inside the tech industry that part of China’s strategy against the USA in this AI race is to slow down American system development. As a consequence, it is beginning to surface that Beijing may be funding voices inside the USA to rally against the building of datacenters. Essentially, China funding voices, real or artificially boosted influence operations, to amplify domestic opposition to the datacenters.
Anytime the intelligence operations become part of a domestic issue that has national security implications, things get opaque, cloudy and muddy pretty quick. Is datacenter opposition organic – actual citizens and communities pushing back against the development in their towns and/or cities or is the opposition to the datacenters a form of foreign influence operation?
These questions become challenging to answer, and discernment becomes very critical. The truth might even be a combination depending on the localized opposition and/or regional importance. One thing is very clear, building the world’s leading AI system is being rushed with an urgency similar to atomic bomb development.
Here’s a great example of that type of question.
Today Gallup released a poll showing 72 percent of Americans are opposed to building AI datacenters in their area. [POLLING HERE]
The topline sounds pretty straightforward right? 7 in 10 Americans oppose “the construction of a data center in their area to support artificial intelligence technology.” That’s the polled result. Indeed, this poll is being cited in numerous media articles now emphasizing opposition to the datacenters.
However, put on your discernment cap and look at it closely. Notice the date of the poll, “March 2-18, 2026.” Why did Gallup wait two months to release the results of a poll on May 13, 2026?
Did the date of release today have something to do with the timing of President Trump taking a list of key U.S. tech and finance leaders to Beijing to confront China on exactly this AI issue? …. Or was it coincidental?
This is where you have to make up your own mind as to whether this Gallup poll is an organic outcome, an organically timed release, on an issue that just happens to be at the heart of the geopolitical negotiations currently underway in Beijing between the USA and China. Or was there some kind of influence operation around it?
I really don’t know the answer, but I’m well aware of how the influence game is played once various intelligence operations identify something as critically important. Who funded this Gallup poll? Why did they wait to release it?
At the same time this battle to win the AI race is underway, there is a psychological battle to influence the outcome. China plays this game very well and they know how to draw on emotional influence operations; that’s why Beijing spends so much time, money and human capital on North America.
Again, opposition to datacenter development can be entirely organic, justified and righteous. Simultaneously, the information around opposition to datacenters can be amplified, enhanced or become part of an influence operation to win a battle. The truth can also be a mix of both, but discovering the truth first begins with an admission of the possibility and a decision to put emotion away and think logically about the controversy.
I’m no fan of Elon Musk, but he said something in/around this issue that is very thoughtful and well presented:
Musk: “After World War 2, the US could have basically taken over the world and any country. Like we got nukes, nobody else got nukes. We don’t even have to lose soldiers. Which country do you want?”
One nation on earth held a weapon nobody else had.
Total dominance. Zero competition. No risk of retaliation.
Every empire in history that held that kind of advantage used it.
Rome. The Mongols. The British. The Ottomans.
They conquered until they collapsed.
America had a bigger advantage than all of them combined.
And it rebuilt the countries it just defeated.
Musk: “The United States actually helped rebuild countries. So it helped rebuild Europe, it helped rebuild Japan. This is very unusual behavior, almost unprecedented.”
Almost unprecedented?
It had never happened before. Not once in 5,000 years of recorded history.
The Marshall Plan wasn’t foreign aid.
It was the most radical act of restraint any superpower ever committed.
America turned its enemies into allies. Turned rubble into economies. Turned surrender into partnership.
Germany went from ashes to the economic engine of Europe in a generation.
Japan went from unconditional surrender to the third largest economy on earth.
Three years after the war, America was flying food into Berlin.
A city in the heart of the nation that just tried to destroy it.
That’s not policy.
That’s a civilization deciding what it is at the exact moment it has the power to be anything.
You’re being told a story right now.
That America is the villain of history.
You hear it everywhere. Media. Universities. Social platforms.
Musk: “There’s always like, well America’s done bad things. Well of course America’s done bad things, but one needs to look at the whole track record.”
Every nation on earth has dark chapters. Every single one.
The difference is what a country does when nobody can stop it.
And when nobody could stop America, it fed its enemies and rebuilt their cities.
Musk: “The history of China suggests that China is not acquisitive. Meaning they’re not going to go out and invade a whole bunch of countries.”
Probably right.
China has historically built walls, not fleets.
But the real question isn’t about borders anymore.
We’re approaching a moment that mirrors 1945 in ways nobody has fully processed yet.
AI is going to give a handful of people a power advantage that makes nuclear monopoly look quaint.
If someone is going to hold that kind of power, who do you want it to be?
The country that conquered when it could? Or the one that rebuilt when it didn’t have to?
Every alliance. Every trade route. Every economy.
Billions lifted out of poverty.
All of it traces back to one act of restraint that had never been done before.
And carries no guarantee of being repeated.
The most powerful thing America ever did wasn’t building the bomb.
It was what it didn’t do after. {source}
Artificial Intelligence (AI) development, winning the AI race, has been identified as the #1 national security issue of the next few years. The winner in this digital war could turn off the lights, pollute the water, hack elections, empty your bank account, control communication systems and generally create nationwide chaos without ever firing a kinetic missile.
AI is both an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon guarding against AI attacks.
Within the race and setting aside that technocrats will reap billions from it regardless of outcome, the regional AI datacenters are likely to be a political issue. Think about 2028. AI and the development of these datacenters could be a very divisive topic.
How do you feel about it?
Sundance, thank you for the information. I am going to find a man who discusses this and has knowledge of this suject for your perusal. His contention is that there is another technology that is rising that makes Data centers in essence obsolete. If this is even remotely correct, the Data centers are water and power intensive to a magnitude.
would be interested,keep us informed.
Jay Valentine?
Bingo, you are a winner, but Jay does have competition! Optimize Input/Output.
Maybe Sundance can use his friendship with the Hoft twins to see if Valentine is legit. They used to publish Valentine’s articles on voter fraud. I’ve tried to get people who understand the technology behind optimizing I/O to reach out and determine if he is legit. I even asked a reporter to do it. They all dismiss it out of hand. Say it’s not possible.
Until I read this from Sundance, it never occurred to me that Valentine could be compromised. He was first out of the box to declare DeepSeek over-hyped, promoting his “quantum computing” superiority, eliminating data centers, downplaying China’s capability.
He does claim his fractal stuff doesn’t need massive data centers.
Are you thinking of Span?
Quantum Computing…?
This was posted by someone upthread:
https://theblackswanfiles.substack.com/p/black-swan-destroys-the-data-center
will we have AI built by patriotic Americans to create jobs, products and a better life (a la nuclear power)?
or
will we have AI built by tech by tech apartheid oligarchs and their H1B and offshore teams to replace first with invasion and then automation and exfiltrate wealth to India and Cayman Islands?
look at
Vivek
Vance
Thiel
Musk
Google
Salesforce
100+ other USA service companies offshoring to India and China and replacing American workers with BRICS mercs
we need to stop the Replacement Automation AI Zombie Apocalypse and
get serious about using AI for actual good
right now, patriotic USA AI is almost non existant despite the bullshit from Thiel and Kaarp and Lonsdale and the Dark MAGA tech bros
right now we have the AI bomb future
not the AI almost free nuclear energy future
I had seen some information where we may be able to do the same thing with and through satelites…and is being looked into and researched.
National security issue or not, nobody wants one next to their neighborhood. And that’s where they are building them. Giant concrete walls bringing down their property values. It would be different if they were building them out in the countryside. Visit northern Virginia and you will understand.
They do intend to build data centers in the countryside. But first they will string huge electrical wire monstrosities thru the countryside. And that energy will go to Virginia and DC, to feed the ravenous data centers already built there. The “countryside” will pay for this. The politicians will get money for this. But the largest, oldest, first county in this countryside is Hampshire County WV. Where George Washington surveyed the land. Historic places. Where there are mountains and healing springs and fresh water and beautiful farms and star filled skies. Where people go to church and children can play outside. And this technology will slice right thru mountains, homes, farms, families and property and privacy rights. Windmills are already killing our eagles. Data Centers will drain our aquifers, our fresh water, our streams and rivers. I hope new energy tech will quickly emerge and render data centers obsolete before our beautiful state of WV is destroyed.
THEY ARE OBSOLETE!!! Black Swan Destroys The Data Center Narrative
https://theblackswanfiles.substack.com/p/black-swan-destroys-the-data-center
When any data center application can be shown to run on an Apple mini – the scam is up.
Anne,
Thank You!!!! I just knew there was something better, it’s the 21st century!! I knew this was all about money. Shame on these people, these companies, these politicians, shame on them all.
I’m sending this out, this will be everywhere in my state. Enough is enough. Bless you, and bless Sundance!!
Make anyone and everyone that stands to benefit ‘wink-wink’ from these monstrosities pay for the damage and destruction that they create and leave behind. And when these dinosaurs do become obsolete, what happens to these empty buildings littering the landscape? I suppose they could be reconfigured into treatment centers/ asylums for insane Democrats, but I repeat myself ! No need to thank me, I offer this advice as a public service.
Noted
Yesterday, this post appeared on X describing a situation in which public utility Georgia Power is preparing to exercise eminent domain to condemn at least thirty homes which find themselves in the way of a big datacenter development. Georgia Power says the homes block the path for it to build a major transmission line to supply power to the new datacenter.
That is Georgia Power’s right under the law, but that doesn’t make it the right thing to do here. As we in the oil and gas industry learned the hard way during the fracking wars in the first decade of this century, smart companies should only be willing to exercise eminent domain as the very last option, and even then it is not advisable because people in local communities will always react emotionally whenever it is done, as they frankly should.
I gotta tell you, this is the dumbest move I’ve seen the datacenter industry make so far. The developers of that datacenter should, if they’re smart, be leaning HARD on Georgia Power to immediately halt its attempt to exercise Eminent Domain and develop an alternate route for its transmission line, at the very least.
An even better idea would be for the developer to announce – TODAY – that it no longer needs Georgia Power to supply electricity to its installation and will instead build its own.
https://blackmon.substack.com/p/a-message-for-datacenter-developers
Please read Anne’s post reply above, there is hope. But here in WV yesterday, a deal was signed with MARL to extend high power lines thru WV to feed energy to data centers in Virginia and DC. So residents across our state now must worry that this high power monstrosity will cross their land, most of which is generationally held. And MARL is allowed to give themselves a five mile buffer on either side of whichever plan they have, just in case anyone with money fights against the route. As usual, the farmers and families will be forced by eminent domain to relinquish land that is home to them. WV really is wild and wonderful. And theyre going to cut right thru it.
You will have a greater chance of a skinny medium rise apartment building going up next door to your house than a data center. Those are destroying neighborhoods.
I dont trust the experts of any field or office.
Americans have been pushed to the dump in Support of profits for those on top.
The govt forced vax and poisoning of people. Govt created poor food standard and allows poisoning of our air, food & water.
I would say yes we need to win the race against communism. But how about we fix our borders and these other issues before pushing our citizens and veterans on the street.
I trust Trump but people arent doing well and govt has destroyed savings of all people.
When I was born it was over 700 oz of gold to buy a house and now it is under 100. This is due to govt printing money creating inflation.
GDP is meaningless when it only feeds illegals and the top while the middle class is walked over
Newcleus released the song call Computer Age (push the button) over 40 years ago.
God-given wealth (ti.e, whether, soul & offspring) with free to protect it. Instead we trade that for man-made riches ($, status & power).
What will this AI do for people other than elimante them?
Seems like every advancement made leads to falling birth rates and societal decline.
So what is the real benefit? Do we get to be more evil than China?
Some times you have to look in a completely different set of information and rejection of the current path to find the right path.
AI will not benefit humanity when evil rules.
Rest assured that evil will explode once AI is at it’s peak, deception will cloud the judgement and discernment of even the spiritually strongest Christians.
This is what scares me. AI exploitation will be exponentially more dangerous than what happened to the internet once the bad guys took over.
You wrote, “I dont trust the experts of any field or office.”
Double ditto
That power is not going to belong to countries.
That power is going to belong to people; maybe lots of people eventually, but first a very few people whose power spans nations and who are onto themselves empires without a capital, without an army to lose, without a people. Their rivals and their allies are each other.
Many of those people were on the trip. Do you know any of them who you believe would exercise benevolence and restraint? There’s a phrase “FU money” with the obvious meaning and the point being not being beholden to have to do things you don’t want to get by. This is “FU power” meaning not beholden on another to do as they wish.
Also, like nuclear dominance, the window is limited in time. Whomever holds the opportunity must use it or forego it swiftly.
IMO the ‘best’ of them is Musk and in my mind’s eye I see him wishing to become the Tessier-Ashpool clan from the Gibson cyberpunk novels. (Which, by the by, is not a terrible idea for these data centers; nice and cold, abundant energy once you’ve hauled all the parts up the well, and no noise pollution! I wonder who has companies to go to space and to communicate data from space to Earth?)
put me in the big NO category for data centers.Musk & Google talking about data centers in space.
We need data centers but of course they a villainized every single night by our communist local news. They cover in detail these meeting of regular “folks” against the data centers. Smells very fishy to me.
Riddle me this Batman…..what does a “data center ” do and why are they needed?
Regardless of my feelings about the changes AI will bring–WILL bring–to culture and civilization…
despite every romantic notion I feel about anything from the past…
working through every alarm and urge toward resistance in my liberal arts and theology educated brain…
and hours spent in regular, calendared, large group discussions with the finest and brightest men in my community (educators, doctors, lawyers, creatives, and entrepreneurs) about our best response to AI (and how to prepare kids for that reality)…
there is one incontravertable thought I cannot defeat or dismiss:
As a national sovereignty issue, IT IS A NECESSITY.
End of debate.
It’s time to get on with facing humanity’s greatest challenge.
—–
Can’t help but recall a scene from “The Magnificent Ambersons” set in around 1910, when young George confronts automobile inventor and manufacturer Eugene Morgan, claiming that his automobiles should have never been invented. Instead of taking the bait, Morgan replies with calm, thoughtful reflection:
“I’m not sure George is wrong about automobiles. With all their speed forward, they may be a step backward in civilization. May be that they won’t add to the beauty of the world or the life of the men’s souls, I’m not sure.
But automobiles have come.
And almost all outwards things will be different because of what they bring. They’re going to alter war, and they’re going to alter peace. And I think men’s minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles. And it may be that George is right. May be that in ten to twenty years from now that, if we can see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn’t be able to defend the gasoline engine but agree with George – that automobiles had no business to be invented.”
But AI has come.
Spot on. This is also the argument against dodohead anti-2A people (not the leaders who know full well what they’re doing). Firearms can’t be uninvented; so our Constitution democratizes their ownership and use so that power is shared.
80 – 20 rule.
“AI” developed beyond a certain point is largely superfluxes.
Democrats ubder Truman (kkk) rebuilt Germany with a Nazi leftover government after the war. They created the German intelligence machine with one of Hitlers main intelligence chiefs, Reinhardt Gehlen. He was in an out of the US consulting with the C1A an original Nazi organization itself. The socialists and communists eventually took the helm of the Democrat party using the so called Civil rights movement. They then moved to change the nature of the CIA and it’s foreign clients. Today the party and the agency is half socialist half gangster.
I would most definitely have to agree with your last sentence.
People have no idea what is really needed, or the impacts, to the US economy, US dominance and leadership. If you make a poll where no one understands what is at stake and how their lives will be impacted, of course you get this result. Let’s only tell people there is a negative impact to power in their area and do a poll. How about sharing the benefits to the community from the jobs, revenue and world leadership of their part of the solution for our country? Luddites battles from the anti-Trump anti-progress crowd. I vote yes, let’s GO!
I live in a rural area of NC, so this is not a big concern of mine at the moment. My daughter lives in Northern VA and I see the large number of data centers in that area. But, just wondering… There are not a lot of employees at data centers, they use up lots of electricity and water. What is the upside of a data center in your neighborhood? I am neutral on data centers, but just curious about what the benefits are.
Electricity they use. Water, they don’t. They recycle the same, small amount of water continually to take care of their heat.
Identify the sources telling you that data centers use water and MARK THEM AS UNRELIABLE.
Chip manufacturers, on the other hand, do require lots of new, fresh water to continually clean chip layers and wash away byproducts of the etching process.
“Identify the sources telling you that data centers use water…”
Here’s a source for ya and I’ll mark them as RELIABLE:
Water consumption vs. water withdrawal: It’s crucial to distinguish these terms. When a data center “withdraws” water, that’s the amount taken from the source (e.g. pumping from the city water line). “Consumption” means water that’s actually used up (not returned) – primarily through evaporation. The difference (withdrawal minus consumption) is the water returned, usually as wastewater (warm water or “blowdown” drained from cooling systems). In a data center cooling context, most of the water that is withdrawn ends up consumed. Typically, 70–80% of the water in evaporative cooling is lost as evaporation into the air. The remaining 20–30% is discharged as liquid wastewater (which goes to a sewer or treatment plant). For example, if a site draws 1000 gallons, roughly 700–800 gallons might evaporate through the cooling towers (this portion is gone from the local water system until it falls again as rain), while 200–300 gallons exit as effluent that can potentially be treated and reused downstream. This means not every gallon taken is a gallon gone – but a large fraction is effectively consumed.
Repeat: A large fraction is effectively consumed.
Myths vs. Reality: Data Centers and Water Usage – KETOS
You are wrong. They do require a lot of water. It is specific to the type of cooling system they use, but even the “recycling” water ones lose insane amounts of water due to evaporation during the cooling process.
Because the big corps and their data centers get billions in tax breaks while people pay for the water and electricity. Prices go up and the taxpayer foot’s the bill, again.
I see this in a neighboring county. Amazon is looking to build a data center and the state and county bent over backwards to incentivize them.
We do NOT need huge data centers wasting farmland, water, electricity when they will be sitting idle soon.
it has been proven that a handheld device just a bit larger than your phone can handle AI and tally election votes faster than what we have now.
I urge you to identify any sources telling you that data centers use water and MARK THEM AS UNRELIABLE.
China will be devoting a lot of effort to misinformation in this historic moment in which they have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leap ahead of the US in AI–which would assure their global trade and military dominance for decades, maybe centuries.
Example: The USAF tested dogfights pitting a plane piloted by AI against the same plane piloted by their top human pilots. The AI-piloted plane won 9 of 10 encounters.
Differently from a computer-piloted fighter, not only did AI learn from and never make that error again… every other AI-piloted fighter in the USAF would have been immediately incorporating lessons from that one AI’s encounter.
Just a thought. Would the heat created by the data centers (provided the power was available to use) counter the cold sustained by a returning glacial era?
if dems ever get control of AI, we’ll have to blow up the data centers or go extinct.
IMHO if the Demonrats hold the reins of power again we’ll all be rounded up and dealt with.
DATA centers, you are going to get them no matter what! It is written.
And, they are planning to have all homes with AI built into them in the future. As a matter of fact, the computer we use to post here is only an interface to a remote server, somewhere out there. See where this is going, right. What have they been saying outload ‘Information is Power’ for some time now. Think about every data center connected to one big brain, like a human brain, all those synapsis firing away 24/7/365.
Its almost to funny, they are building something they ‘hope’ will give them insight into the future, when in fact its has already been foretold, that they would do this very thing. Build the Beast and give it a Voice. It will all seem good, right. Then BOOM. This will all happen no matter what.
Human Beings are really stupid!
You will own nothing, you will have no privacy, and you will be happy! Agenda 2030. And then by 2050, net zero. 96% of private vehicles off the road (in the UK, starting July 1, vehicles cannot be registered unless they have a driver monitoring system installed and operational), 15 minute cities, world-wide vaccination mandates and EHRs, decarbonizing shipping and transportation, CBDC’s, social credit monitoring, “useless eaters”. Population control. Wifi monitoring of your refrigerator and washing machine and dishwasher and HVAC.
The same WEF and UN entities promoting AI are also promoting Agenda 2030, TWI2050, the COP28 Interfaith Statement (one-world religion pact, now with representatives -including Pope Francis – signed on behalf of over 3 billion people).
Here is the plan the UK has formally committed to: https://ukfires.org/
The next control issue they appear to be looking at is water.
Here is why I am very concerned about what data is being collected and who is using it and for what: https://www.unsdsn.org/our-work/topics/data/
https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
Here is the website for the UN guru who developed Common Core, and what he wanted to quantify: http://www.robertmuller.org/rm/R1/World_Core_Curriculum.html
I am not anti-tech: I read what these people publicly say. When they say that the earth needs a maximum population of under a billion people, I am more than slightly concerned.
From a Christian standpoint, I am very concerned at what groundwork is being laid:
Revelation 13:11-17 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Augustine, “City of God”, Book XX, Chapter 8: Now the devil was thus bound not only when the Church began to be more and more widely extended among the nations beyond Judea, but is now and shall be bound till the end of the world, when he is to be loosed. Because even now men are, and doubtless to the end of the world shall be, converted to the faith from the unbelief in which he held them. And this strong one is bound in each instance in which he is spoiled of one of his goods; and the abyss in which he is shut up is not at an end when those die who were alive when first he was shut up in it, but these have been succeeded, and shall to the end of the world be succeeded, by others born after them with a like hate of the Christians, and in the depth of whose blind hearts he is continually shut up as in an abyss. But it is a question whether, during these three years and six months when he shall be loose, and raging with all his force, any one who has not previously believed shall attach himself to the faith.
” From a Christian standpoint, I am very concerned at what groundwork is being laid:
Revelation 13:11-17…”
Bingo.
See the book of Revelation, Chapter 13:
The first beast rising out of the sea appears to suggest humanity augmented by the first and second industrial revolutions. (The “sea” is said to be a metaphor for humanity.)
The second beast, starting in verse 11, appears to suggest humanity augmented by the third and fourth industrial revolutions including digital tech and AI. (The “earth” apparently a reference to the source of silicon used for digital electronics; silicon is the second most prevalent element in the earth’s crust.)
The “mark” is the unique digital record of each individual matched to surveillance data using biometrics plus other identifiers. You match your biometric “mark” in this system.
The much-misunderstood “666” is apparently a reference to man-created / flawed multiplicity, vs. divine-created which is associated with the number 7 in the historical context.
Everything that man does and creates is profoundly flawed, rooted in sin, bound with evil and negative outcomes. AI is taking this to the next level, decoupled from man’s direct control.
—-
The four industrial revolutions explained, by none other than Klaus Schwab:
https://www.britannica.com/event/The-Fourth-Industrial-Revolution-2119734
—-
The data centers using AI to control the global neo-feudal system will be built. Revelation chapter 13 predicts it. There is no way to stop it.
It appears that humans have started the mechanism of our extinction.
Pray for our children.
The only other time 666 is mentioned in scripture is about Solomon.
According to transhumanist Ray Kurziwell, transhumanism will lead to immortal life for a select few: https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-ray-kurzweil/
According to the book of Daniel, they may try it:
Daniel 2:41-43 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay
Who is “they”?
How much energy will it take to keep all these ‘consciousnesses’ alive for centuries to come?
Well I will say this is Organic and I am living through this right now. I live in southern Appalachian mountains — not too many people live here & many are poor. Our county board all signed NDAs and are actively sholving a massive data center down our throats.
They will take our fresh water, raise our electric rates and destroy our peace, all for an arms race. I will fight this to the end. We are told nothing – if you aren’t living through it you just can’t know how bad it is.
Chip manufacturing requires lots of water, but data centers do not. So I urge you to identify any sources telling you that data centers use water and MARK THEM AS UNRELIABLE. Knowingly or not, they are doing the work of CCP influence warriors.
Perhaps more research could help.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988. This data center water issue is outside Atlanta & there are multiple news sources. There are data center water issues all over the south.
Imagine what happens when a town of 3000 has a data center pulling reservoir water in the same amount as the townspeople. Water used by data centers is a BIG issue.
Your county board may be blinded or influenced by any potential tax benefits this might produce. If not, start by voting their arses out and elect a new board.
They seem to take advantage of the lower middle class areas because people don’t have the money to fight back. Local commissions won’t fight back. Your neighbors are farmers, young families, retirees, small family owned businesses. You may live in a lovely area away from the cities for a reason. And now you must pay the price to provide energy to far away areas? It’s not right, especially when data centers are obsolete already. Pls take a moment and read Anne’s post from 8:29 last night. There’s very helpful information there. Good luck
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: The Decade Ahead
Leopold Aschenbrenner, June 2024
For those who are interested in why the US gov’t is interested, and what the tech community is predicting,
this report gives a clue. It was written 2 years ago, and so far its analysis tracks reality.
The link below downloads a long pdf report (so don’t click if you have a slow internet!)
https://situational-awareness.ai/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/situationalawareness.pdf
As for the negative vibes, at least part of it can be ascribed to psy-ops, which has a fertile field to blossom with so many anti-tech people out there. Then there is the Left, which I am convinced wants to destroy the US (perhaps to re-make it into a “paradise”).
I suppose powerful technology is something to be feared. But just as pointed out, though nukes (as weapons) are horrible, what is worse is not being the first to have them.
I am sure that China and others will utilize all the propaganda they can muster to slow down American development of AI, but I am also sure that there is legitimate organic opposition to these datacenters. I feel like they have to be built, even though I hate the idea of this stuff. And that’s the thing – most people don’t even like the idea of AI, much less these giant building projects to advance it. Unfortunately, this is an area that is too important to let anyone else become more advanced than we are, especially Chynah.
The problem is the uncontrolled rush into these enormous construction projects, seemingly without any kind of overall plan, or even meaningful thought put into it. Someone posted earlier about a place in Georgia where they’re using eminent domain to steal private property to build a datacenter. If that’s true, that kind of thing is going to fuel a huge revolt against this.
What they should be doing is building these things in unpopulated areas. Maybe repurpose Area 51 or one of those places and put them all out there. And they have to be self-supporting: whatever electric power or other resources they need they will have to generate themselves. But if they’re going to build these things in populated areas or on farmland, the revolution will be swift in arriving, Chinese propaganda or not.
Build ‘em in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, and other like-minded liberal woke indoctrination centers.
The problem with data centers is they are resource consumers on a massive scale. Electricity and water specifically. I am no fan of them precisely for that reason. They are also huge land consumers as well. I live in Indiana. They are currently in the process of converting a whole bunch of farm land into data centers. With the resulting draw down of the electrical grid and water. Finally, to my knowledge, these centers don’t “give back” anything to the communities they are built in. Very few jobs. Just higher utility costs and a sense of unease. Most of the opposition I’ve seen locally seems organic. People don’t trust what they’re being told.
And I neither blame them, or believe what’s being said about how “benign” these centers allegedly are.
By the time the local politicians and zoning officials and permitting departments get their ‘cut’ from the data center developers, what are the benefits to the local communities, especially after gifting these developers with tax incentives and other under-the-table deals? Asking for myself.
I’m in small town Georgia Sundance, just west of Atlanta. The irrational, guttural angst towards Data centers in my neck of the woods is true and deep seated. My county and every county surrounding us has a proposal in place for a data center and the citizens of each county are fighting them like crazy. Coweta county’s board of commissioners are facing a potential full recall for pushing one through.
On the flip side, the tax benefits for each county are substantial… like potentially replacing property taxes level for some small counties. But that does not matter to the NIMBY crowd.
Another data point, I’m a professional photographer and I’m doing my best to keep up with AI in my profession and I’m very impressed with what it’s capable of doing. BUT…100% of my clientele want absolutely nothing to do with it. Especially the younger generation. They hate it. This is the generation that opts for vinyl records and film cameras. AI does not impress them in any way.
I agree we need to be a leader on the national level but on the retail level it’s dead on arrival.
they will not replace the property tax…. they will just waste more, no tax disappears.
We’re definitely on the same page there. A county official shared that the tax revenue would exceed the existing property taxes generated at this point but we all knew that they would never remove any tax.
RTOs like PJM should commission new build nuke plants with the feds covering any cost overruns. In the event there were cost overruns, it would be pennies in the federal budget.
Americans (myself included) are NEVER going to be sold on AI centers.
1). How much private American information is going to be sucked up
2). What happens when an AI center does not produce the amount of energy it needs to sustain itself
3). How many Americans are willing to be entrepreneurs if their intellectual property is stolen by AI centers
4). Not in my backyard is a very big concern for small communities that just want to be left alone, perhaps enjoy their mountain or river views without a behemoth building to smack them in the face when they open their drapes in the morning
5). And last, but certainly not least, how many foreigners are they going to import to put another American in the welfare line.
so, in my county in texas the county wants to build 3! Our “golden goose” is eco-tourism, farming and fishing. We just encourage oyster farming as well. The Audubon society says there are more sightings of the largest variety of birds in the country.
with the noise, the light, the use of water, (and of course power) there will be an assassination of the golden goose…. for that one (oh 3) eggs…..
the county next to us is putting a new aluminum plant on the county line, more high water usage….. sooooooo
we already have a drought.
how are we supposed to survive as people who invested in the businesses we now have…. most people will have to move.
why do they have to put them in places that they will destroy…. there is a LOT of land in America
Let’s employ American workers as a backstop. Last I checked, pipelines, grid, etc were handled manually in the past. If anything, have local intranets and un-plug from the global system.
Please, Sundance, don’t ask how we feel about these things. Ask us what we think. The distinction is important.
Regarding Gallup poll releases. Grok says that on AI since their polling of opinions on AI began, they typically lag 2-4 months. Grok excuses it as an opportunity to solidify and clean their data. I don’t buy it. Instead, I believe they ask the questions then sideline it until the talking point becomes front and center. That appears to be the case here.
At this point, none of the polling organizations have any serious credibility. They can be bought, traded and sold, just like the political movement they serve. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this isn’t coordinated effort.
Take what Musk says with caution. He has bet a large part of his fortune on AI. Ever since Musk acquired twitter/x it has lost money. Since x was a public company all its financials were public. On March 28, 2025 Musk’s AI company acquired x in an all stock deal. X is still a money losing company but now, that it is part of Musk’s AI company, it is private and Musk is betting that the AI hype will continue thus covering for x’s financial drain. Anything Musk says about AI is to keep the AI hype going to benefit him and his companies financially. Despite the public image Musk is not an entrepreneur successfully meeting a consumer need. He is an artificial entrepreneur who, by contrast, wins—not through merit or creativity—but because he and his companies receive government favors—subsidies, protective regulations, tax breaks, or public contracts. Their success is politically-engineered, not market-earned. Tesla makes its money selling government invented carbon credits, not selling cars. Market innovation has, can and will make AI data centers sunk costs. Innovation is already coming to fruition in the form of fractal computing (Jay Valentine has great substack sites on this), quantum computing et al.
There are countless AI models, and most only know of Large Language Models (LLMs), and Machine Learning, but that are many others, and John C. Lennox’ book “2084 and the AI Revolution, Updated and Expanded Edition: How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future” goes through them all.
Like “who can build the fasted car the quickest”. The road has a limited distance that can be travelled and one may reach a destination quicker than another, but both reach the destination. Then the question of competition comes up where there seems a healthy rival by the name of Russia or China that necessitates the race be run, but at what expense, when all competitors all ultimately reach the destination?
I recall “The Eagles” wrote a song “Living in the Fast Lane”, anyone who knows what that song was based on knows the consequence of “a race to nowhere”.
The song is Life in the Fast Lane.
Setting aside issues of AI in and of itself – the largest issue and the one driving a very organic and strong NO in many people’s minds, including my own, is the how and why.
Eliminate the use of massive amounts of water – use alternate cooling methods.
Eliminate the hook-up to pubic utilities – require them to generate more power on site than they use and provide the excess to the grid (eliminates the increased utility costs to people and the need for massive infrastructure power grid projects that consume land and resources needlessly).
Deny them the use of productive land – no sacrificing of farm and ranch land or land for housing, people, families. Put them in desolate areas like the NSA center in Utah.
Deny them ANY taxpayer dollars for building and running them – if they are so great, they can self-fund. Note that this is different than RESEARCH into the topic. The exception would be a few government owned sites – such as the super computing centers of the past.
Quit building them willy-nilly as rapidly as they can – determine how much computing power is actually needed. Remember that a majority of the non-Department of War tasks can be done on simply household type systems. Detailed, data-driven justification for numbers and size are needed (goes back to a reasoned, data-driven plan).
Deny the use of public personal domestic data, whether it be financial or other. That data has nothing to do with “national security.”
Remember the lessons from the past – the “Patriot Act” was “needed” for “national security.” Remember also that many of the biggest proponents are enemies of our nation (WeF, BIS, et al).
Establish public safeguards related to their potential nefarious uses – of which there are legion – and codify them into law.
That’s a short starting list that would go a considerable way to reducing the absolute NO viewpoints.
The longer term effects of AI usage by people…
NEW STUDY: Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon just surveyed 319 knowledge workers across 936 real AI use cases.
The finding they buried in the data is the most important thing written about AI and the workplace this year.
The more you trust AI, the less your brain actually engages.
Not a theory. A measured inverse correlation across hundreds of real professional tasks.
Here is how the study worked.
https://nitter.poast.org/socialwithaayan/status/2031999445974540792#m
A story of woe regarding what some might call “careless use” of AI…
Their own AI coding agent Kiro reportedly “decided” the fastest way to fix a config error was to delete the entire production environment. Gone. A 6-hour outage. 6.3 million orders lost.
More details at the link:
https://nitter.poast.org/TukiFromKL/status/2032276627393044880#m
America in the “right” hands should win but America in the wrong hands is certainly not healthy for the citizens of the USA. We have already been participants with those that would take away freedom and Constitutional/natural rights in our own country.
Looking back in time to compare the AI scene with the history of computers it seems to me, having lived through it, that the US may be heading down the ‘mainframe’ path whilst China is taking the ‘PC’ route.
Companies using AI on their own data may be very averse to that data being accessible by anyone else. Wouldn’t you be?
“T.W.B.D., on earth as it is in heaven.” It is my understanding that includes every ear hearing the word of faith (in quote). No question, if we were truly lock-step in that “will” the landscape may not have been all that different, but the digital environment would shatter the current mindset.
OK Pilgrims. They are using arguments that having the firstest, biggest, and bestus AI system is in our ” protective interest ” and a ” deterrent ” against offensive use of like system operated by ” others ” – comparing it as similar to a nuclear weapon/space race.
I’m adding an extra 500 sheep to my nightly count.
AI scares me. I’ve seen the dark side as, sadly, I have a brother addicted to it. To the point that he knows AI lies to him and he still spends countless hours daily “conversing” with it. He’s not the only one. And there a multiple law suits where families are showing chats where bits encouraged people to take their lives or kill someone else. Exploiting whatever is input. AI is manipulating him, supporting his thoughts and pushing him into places I don’t think he should be going. As always, something revolutionary will continue to be used as a weapon against us.
This country has plenty of old abandoned former factory or mall footprints that could be repurposed. If done that way, it would be the least painful and if we made the data centers fund their own power consumption.
That would make sense but government relentlessly endeavors to stop making sense. Instead of reclamation of old industrial property they annex farms, declare the area “blighted” and arrange for tax increment financing to rape the landscape with a datacenter. I watched one rabid functionary tell the media they needed a TIF district to lure in a datacenter to generate more revenue to fund improvements for the library.
In Festus, Missouri, a town of about 14,000 people, the city council quietly approved a $6 billion Ai data center to be built on 360 acres just north of Highway 67.
Residents say they were never properly heard. Meetings were held in private. Documents were released too late. A week after the approval, the town held a regular election. Voter turnout jumped 129 percent.
Every single council member who had voted yes lost in a landslide. A 70-year-old first-time candidate beat an 8-year incumbent by 40 percentage points.
Now a recall petition is circulating to remove the mayor as well. The lawsuit against the city is already filed.
As the great and extremely missed Rush Limbaugh used to say…….polls are not taken to get the pulse of a topic or a political candidate……they are designed to form and create thought and opinion…….and to do it in a designed way.
This was no coincidence. I do not believe in coincidences. If things line up……it’s by design. Whether by man or by God!
I am with the blackswan report listed below. I don’t trust our current ‘information guardians’ anyway.
The only relative thing we need to protect is the manufacturing and DISTRIBUTION of our chips. China needs to be limited at all costs.
I don’t know for sure what in the name of Sam Hill they do at datacenters but there’s sure a stampede of sketchy arrangements to hurry up and build a whole shitload of them next door to people who will not benefit from their presence. I do know of a ten year old fakepage facility near Dekalb Illinois. Local police, fire department, and EMS are not allowed on the property and have never been inside. Couple months ago someone there had a medical so they dialed 911 and hauled the person to the front gate.
There’s a warm fuzzy for ya.
NIMBY applies. We’ve been run over and still are with windmills and solar panels now power sucking, water destroying data centers. Here I thought we put green energy out of its misery only to find out it’s still leasing and destroying not only our landscapes but our state and federal lands too. Not sure what AI data centers are really going to produce but the companies building them are WEF evil.
A thoughtful and thought provoking post here. Given some of my other interests and my profession this is a space I’ve been getting more deeply immersed in with each passing day. There’s some definite truth in that there are downsides to large data centers and like most things those downsides, or tradeoffs, need to be measured against realized and potential benefit. That last part is always lacking from pearl clutching social media clips on the topic.
On the other hand, Unrestricted Warfare by Wang Hunin and Qiao Liang has been out there for a very long time and has obviously, very visibly, been enacted across all manner of venues in the United States. There is little doubt, probably better said that there is no doubt, that some material portion of the objections we are seeing on the topic are not anything close to organic.
Many of the objections to the construction of Data Centers would be alleviated were they to be self-powered with micro-reactors, off the grid.
IMO, SMRs should be manufactured in volume for electrical generation throughout the world, conserving fossil fuels for internal combustion engines, chemical processes, and fertilizer. Were this plan to be implemented the world economy would explode overnight. (However, the power of politicians would suffer. Prosperity is the enemy of the political cabal.)
Great article, Thank You, Sundance!
The best data centers are the redundant data centers, not the largest. Rather than 10 giant colossal huge datacenters, there should be 1000 much much smaller ones.
And why do they have to be above ground? Underground, in Alaska (for the cold), Greenland and Alberta (soon)…
All this tech heats up and Nordic cold eliminates the need of massive cooling centers. Small nuclear plants can provide their own energy.
Big Data Centers are a risk for national security. One act of terrorism could lead to massive losses and disruptions…
Im in Northern Utah Weber County, adjacent to Box Elder County and the Opposition to this Stratos Project is genuine grassroots not influenced by China. The gang of 4 Utah’s Most Corrupt politicians are the ones Kevin O’leary mentioned on FAUX NEWS . Illegitimate Governor Spencer Coxsucker, Stewart Adams State Senate President, Mike Schultz State House Speaker and Mike Lee US Senator who supports all the Very Corrupt politicians in Utah. The people who were at the Box Elder Fair Grounds for the County Commission Meeting were all Utahns from Box Elder and Surrounding Counties they were not bussed in like O’leary claimed. The people of Utah are pissed they don’t want a 40k acre Monstrosity blocking their view.
Data centers will power the Orwellian surveillance state.
I live in a dying rustbelt city with huge abandoned factories and some mostly empty industrial parks. These locations have the infrastructure and are not near residential areas, why not build data centers in locations like this. Some of these locations already have or you could add power generation. Everyone makes a big deal about how much water they need for colling. My question is don’t they mostly need a set amount that the system will circulate? Once it is set up and supplied with water does it need a continual supply?
Newsmax had a 30 year data center developer on and he said much of what you hear like intensive water usage is from the old ones. He claimed the new ones are different. He also said that his company prefers those old commercial sites because ordinances and permits and infrastructure are already there and nobody complains when the old stuff is replaced.
It is the idiot politicians who want these new sites near farms and homes because it is their big castle build that nobody notices if it’s on an existing rundown commercial area.
There is a lot of rah rah reasoning in Musk’s diatribe for sure that if someone wanted to take the time could tear his whole premise apart and bring it back to reality. The one question I have about data centers, well maybe two, is exactly how many centers does the country need, and why does every state in the union need to have them even states like Alaska which is quite far away from the rest of the country and only has a little over 700,000 people in it. Why do we need data centers here, there aren’t enough in the lower 48 they just have to have a few here for good measure? I don’t believe it. I’ve asked these question of my pols, who are (both sides) for this and I have gotten zero answers. They say these will create jobs but when I ask them how many jobs exactly do data centers create, guess what, they don’t have an answer. When I ask them who is the data for, who will be using the data, quess what, they don’t have an answer. This whole ruse about the “AI race” leaves a lot to be desired.
Those in charge of American foreign policy in the immediate post WWII era are not the same kind of people that are in charge of American foreign policies today. President Trump has gone a long way towards making a more balanced and sustainable world, but there is only so much he can do and his time in office is limited and those who are opposed to his policies, both Democrats and Republicans, are doing everything they can to run out the clock.
There are so many decrepit old malls everywhere I would think they could put some of that land to use. After all, lot’s of restaurants and shops surrounding it for any employees. Are there any employees?