The State of AI: Energy is king, and the US is falling behind
In the age of AI, the biggest barrier to progress isn’t money but energy. That should be particularly worrying in the US, where massive data centers are waiting to come online. It doesn’t look as if the country will build the steady power supply or infrastructure needed to serve them all.
It wasn’t always like this. For about a decade before 2020, data centers were able to offset increased demand with efficiency improvements. Now, though, electricity demand is ticking up in the US, with billions of queries to popular AI models each day—and efficiency gains aren’t keeping pace.
If we want AI to have the chance to deliver on big promises without driving electricity prices sky-high for the rest of us, the US needs to learn some lessons from the rest of the world on energy abundance. Just look at China. Read the full story.
—Casey Crownhart & Pilita Clark
This is from The State of AI, our subscriber-only collaboration between the Financial Times & MIT Technology Review examining the ways in which AI is reshaping global power.
Every Monday for the next four weeks, writers from both publications will debate one aspect of the generative AI revolution reshaping global power. While subscribers to The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter, get access to an extended excerpt, subscribers to the magazine are able to read the whole thing. Sign up here to receive future editions every Monday.
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