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AI's insane power use might be destroying the planet?
Leo Rodman
January 12, 2026
AI is not “in the cloud.”
AI is on a power line.
This week, OpenAI and SoftBank didn’t ship a cute feature.
They bought electricity.
A $1B check.
A 1.2 gigawatt data center buildout.
That’s the headline nobody wants to say out loud:
The AI race isn’t won by prompts.
It’s won by
land
permits
transformers
and whoever can get megawatts faster than everyone else.
So while people argue about
which model is “smarter”
the real winners are quietly turning AI into a utilities business.
If you’re building in AI, here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Your roadmap is now an energy plan.
No power = no progress.
And the “future of intelligence” starts looking a lot like
infrastructure politics
local grid fights
and billion-dollar supply chains.
Tell your friends if you want more people to talk about the physical cost of AI.
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