Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, frames the need to build data centres around the risk of having to choose between curing cancer and improving public education.<\/p>\n
In a blog post, the 40-year-old billionaire wrote: \u201cIf AI stays on the trajectory that we think it will, then amazing things will be possible. Maybe with 10 gigawatts of compute, AI can figure out how to cure cancer. Or with 10 gigawatts of compute, AI can figure out how to provide customised tutoring to every student on earth. If we are limited by compute, we\u2019ll have to choose which one to prioritise; no one wants to make that choice, so let\u2019s go build.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altman reiterated his argument that \u201cthe world needs much more compute\u201d on Monday after the ChatGPT maker announced a multibillion-dollar deal to acquire AI infrastructure from the chip designer Advanced Micro Devices<\/a>. The deal came hot on the heels of chip designer Nvidia\u2019s announcement in September that it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI<\/a> to build AI infrastructure and new data centres with a capacity of at least 10 gigawatts of power, or the equivalent of peak electricity demand in New York.<\/p>\n Yet despite the bold claims of AI\u2019s potential by tech bosses, the reality of building computing power in the present is being met with scepticism by communities facing a sharp increase in data centre proposals.<\/p>\n In Indiana, where Google formally withdrew a $1.5 billion data centre proposal last week after fierce local opposition, Bryce Gustafson, an organiser at Citizens Action Coalition, which campaigns on energy issues, said data centres were largely seen as a \u201cnuisance\u201d being built for non-essential generative AI, in what feels like an \u201cinvasion of Indiana\u201d.<\/p>\n Gustafson said: \u201cI think most people just want to get on Google and get a search engine \u2026 And all of a sudden they\u2019re confronted with this AI stuff. When we all go home and watch our streaming service, it works fairly well. The internet\u2019s doing OK, it\u2019s staying afloat.\u201d<\/p>\n Gustafson said he had \u201cnever seen\u201d such a large opposition, including from Republican city councillors, to a local issue as he did with Google\u2019s data centre, which raised fears of further increases in utility bills. \u201cPeople are extraordinarily sensitive to rate increases,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy are they coming here? They want our water. They want our tax breaks.\u201d<\/p>\n In the past 15 months, about ten data centre projects have been halted in Indiana following public opposition. In some cases, the opposition has been to farmland being reclassified as industrial land. Even in some instances when politicians have approved re-zoning, residents have filed lawsuits to try to prevent the developments.<\/p>\n In Amarillo, Texas, Fermi America, co-founded in January by the former US energy secretary Rick Perry, is betting on the potential of Project Matador, a development site spanning more than 5,000 acres that the company has leased from a local university. The developers, who also like to refer to the site as the President Donald J Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus, hope to attract tenants such as xAI, OpenAI and Anthropic to occupy data centres powered by a combination of natural gas, solar energy and nuclear power.<\/p>\n Fermi has yet to generate any revenue, sign any tenants or secure a licence for nuclear power generation. Yet, already local protesters have expressed concerns about the burden of the project on the town\u2019s already stressed water supply.<\/p>\n