The AI Backlash Has Found Its Issue: Your Power Bill
Opposition to AI has hardened from opinion polls into cancelled projects, ousted officials and police reports. A record 20 data center projects were cancelled in a single quarter, and the grievance pulling the movement together is the one that arrives every month with a number on it: the electricity bill.
Read full story →A $67 Billion Bet That AI's Hunger for Power Is Permanent
NextEra's all-stock acquisition of Dominion Energy would create the world's largest regulated utility. Strip away the financial machinery and the deal is a single wager: that the electricity demand created by AI is not a passing bubble but a permanent feature of the economy.
Read full story →Europe Wants to Win the AI Race. Its Electricity Bill Says Otherwise.
Energy analysts warn that Europe faces a problem more basic than algorithms or talent: it cannot supply electricity cheaply enough to run the data centers AI requires. OpenAI has already paused its UK Stargate project, and France and the Nordics are quietly pulling ahead.
Read full story →AI Could Make the Grid Smarter. Regulators Keep Saying No.
The same technology straining the power grid could also help run it more efficiently, from wildfire detection to smarter crew dispatch. The obstacle is not the software. It is regulators, under pressure to hold down bills, repeatedly refusing to let utilities charge customers for it.
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