Artificial intelligence may be the future, but the public isn’t convinced it’s the future they want.
Even as companies, investors, and the federal government invest heavily in this transformative technology, the American people remain skeptical. A third of Americans are concerned about AI, nearly half think AI will cause “significant job losses,” and less than half think the government will regulate AI well.
If leaders in technology and government want to win the people’s support for AI, they must respond to AI anxiety. If not, America will lose the AI race while we’re barely past the starting line.
A major source of public concern is the fear that AI will strain the electric grid, raise energy prices, and increase greenhouse gas emissions. Over 61% of Americans are concerned about the amount of electricity AI requires, while fewer than half of Americans would welcome an AI data center in their community.
There is a promising solution to this particular problem: data centers that generate their own power. If done properly, this would not only blunt energy price hikes, but it could even drive consumer utility prices down.
Fermi America’s Project Matador, located in rural Texas, is one of the industry’s first attempts at this model. While most data centers rely on electricity from the grid, Project Matador is designed to generate 11 gigawatts of private energy on its own campus, enough to power every single home in the state of New York. It will do this through every means possible, including natural gas, solar, geothermal, wind, small modular reactors, and battery storage. The intent is for the entire 18 million square foot data center to generate its own power, eliminating any long-term reliance on utility purchases.
Naturally, a self-contained energy system won’t add any demand pressure to the surrounding community, meaning locals in the area shouldn’t see any data-center-driven utility price hikes.
However, there is no reason builders can’t design other data center models as well, offering even more benefits to the community.
For example, a state or local government could negotiate with a data center builder to create a facility that’s not merely energy neutral, but a net positive, pumping excess supply onto the grid to reduce prices for nearby consumers. In a way, select data centers could function as miniature power plants, providing surplus electricity that benefits the American people.
Likewise, in addition to mega campuses, we could also deploy micro data centers that both disperse electricity usage and leverage the natural energy advantages of a particular location, such as a hydropower facility, abundant sunlight for solar energy, or access to geothermal energy.
Such solutions would not only be beneficial to artificial intelligence companies that require cheap, reliable, and readily accessible energy, but they would also benefit consumers, providing a reason for Americans to view the deployment of AI as a positive rather than a negative.
Unfortunately, power plants in AI data centers are being inhibited by both shortsighted environmentalists and bureaucratic red tape.
Fermi America had to alter its plans for Project Matador after facing pushback from environmental protesters, a highly ironic turn of events for a facility that is not only located in the middle of nowhere in the Texas panhandle, but also planned to generate all of its energy from low- or zero-emission sources. While the concerns of environmental activists may be understandable, every community wants to protect its land and environment; blocking a data center that generates its own clean energy will result in higher emissions, not lower.
Additionally, like any energy infrastructure project, data centers with power generation facilities face a challenging and expensive environmental review and permitting process. Even builders who want to relieve pressure on the grid, generate excess power, and benefit local communities will face numerous hurdles from environmental lawyers and federal and state bureaucrats before they have a chance to break ground.
If we want the benefit of data center power plants, we must remove these roadblocks and let innovators build. If we don’t, Americans will continue to view AI as a technology that costs them from start to finish — on the front end, with higher energy prices, and on the back end, with job losses and economic disruption.
Clearly, policymakers should devote more energy to resolving the latter concerns, but the way to quell fears about energy prices is simple: Produce more energy. Localized data center energy generation will relieve that front-end pressure, allowing consumers and the nation to start enjoying AI’s benefits without it directly adding to the family budget on every month’s utility bill.
SPACE TRAVEL’S NEW FRONTIER: PRIVATE OWNERSHIP
At the end of the day, unleashing domestic energy not only helps the U.S. win the AI race, it’s also the key to winning the American people’s support.
Drew Bond is the Co-Founder, President & CEO of C3 Solutions.
