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Here's a Texas official calling for a moratorium on new data centers in Texas "until we fully assess the long-term impacts on our infrastructure, agricultural economy, and communities." Imagine if, in the early 19th century, governments had imposed a moratorium on steam engines until they could "fully assess" the long-term impacts of coal mining, railroads, factories, and industrial towns. This would have delayed the Industrial Revolution for an arbitrary amount of time, and all of us would be much poorer. Data centers are the steam engines of the AI age: foundational infrastructure for a new wave of productivity and progress. It would have been a terrible mistake to block steam engines 200 years ago, and it would be a terrible mistake to block data centers today.

AlexEpstein ↗