Power Play
AI wants your electricity
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About this episode
America is rebuilding its power grid for AI before anyone can agree on how much power AI will need. In Ohio, one utility held 30 gigawatts of data center requests. When it asked developers for money upfront, requests dropped to 13 gigawatts. Jackie Snow follows the phantom demand clogging utility queues, the decisions already being made on numbers nobody trusts, and who pays if the guesses run high. CREDITS: Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie. Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig. Hosted by Marco Pimentel. Produced by Simon Litt. Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.