Data centers have exploded into public consciousness in the past two years. In central Ohio, they’re everywhere: 133 are already here, and that number is expected to grow to more than 200 by 2030. With them comes energy infrastructure. In Hilliard, near where I live, the residents will soon have to put up with an extensive gas fuel cell and diesel generator complex that will supply power for an AWS data center. It will emit 1.5 million pounds of CO2 every day, equivalent to about 66,000 cars. It’s sited less than a mile from an elementary school, and the city government had no say because HB 15 in Ohio allows for expedited application and approval of power infrastructure to support data centers. The boom is driven in no small part by the insatiable demands of generative AI: ChatGPT, Sora, Claude, and all of the other language-learning models (LLMs) require vast amounts of computing power, which means very large and very powerful server farms.
We’re living through a 21st-century version of the railroad boom. We celebrate the building of the railroads today; former President Barack Obama, for instance, loved to repeat the line that “America is the country that built the transcontinental railroad.” We might look back at 19th-century railroads with nostalgia because we can’t seem to build high-speed rail today, or because it harkens back to an era when it seemed like we could make the impossible happen. In truth, the railroad industry was horrifyingly dysfunctional, environmentally destructive, riddled with graft and theft, and above all, unprofitable for all but a few people. AI seems poised to play out in the same way.
Railroads Were America’s First Tech Bubble
Railroad boosters made all kinds of absurd promises the same way that OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, and other Big Tech companies do today. Collis P. Huntington, one of the founders of the Union Pacific, promised, “The one moral, the one remedy for every evil, social, political, financial, and industrial, the one immediate vital need of the entire Republic, is the Pacific Railroad.” More honest was Cornelius Vanderbilt, who said, “Railroads are not run for the public benefit, but to pay. Incidentally, we may benefit humanity, but the aim is to earn a dividend.” The same man also said, “What do I care about law? Ain’t I got the power?”