Posted on 09/24/2025 4:30:19 AM PDT by blueplum
In Abilene, Texas—in the heart of what locals call the Big Country, long defined by ranching, farming, shale oil exploration, and now dotted with wind turbines—OpenAI and Oracle staged a carefully crafted media showcase on Tuesday to talk about the latest boom underway...
In Abilene alone, a crew of 6,400 workers have already moved massive amounts of soil to flatten the hills, and laid down enough fiber optic cable to wrap the Earth 16 times....
The five new Stargate projects—in Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, and in an undisclosed Midwest location—will bring Stargate’s current pipeline to nearly 7 gigawatts and more than $400 billion in investment over the next three years. In the data center world, “gigawatts” are shorthand for how much electricity a facility can draw—and therefore how much AI compute it can deliver. A 1-gigawatt facility, for instance, requires enough substations, cooling, and transmission to sustain the power demand of nearly a million homes....
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
This is like an industrial revolution-type thing.
Although, no one knows what the impact will be on jobs/employment.
Is it going to cause mass unemployment or will new jobs/roles spring up that we can’t even imagine yet?
I happen to think the latter. Keep an open mind.
I believe Pres. Trump has given them permission to build mini nuke reactors to power their own facility and possibly surrounding areas. We definitely need more power, and not just for supercomputers.
When WPPSS built Plant 2, now called Columbia Generating Station, at Hanford Washington they claimed it would power 1 million homes in Seattle. That plant produces 1,300 Megawatts.
These AI data centers are investing in modular reactor systems to power them but those are reportedly only going to produce a fraction of that?
Is anyone else uncomfortable with artificial intelligence centers powered by their own nuclear reactors?
Quite the burdon on the power grid. Hope it’s up to it.
“Quite the burden on the power grid. Hope it’s up to it.”
The Texas grid is highly reliable and one of the most robust in the country. No one should have any concerns about this. /s
Wish they would put this crap in already congested, ugly cities and not out in God’s country.
I’m kinda worried about AI...PERIOD...
For those unfamiliar, these are Azimov’s Laws regarding robots:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Even those who don’t know these laws or their origin are familiar with the consequences of AI. In I Robot, and adaptation of Asimov’s science fiction writing, the AI came to the conclusion that humanity was too violent and unstable to be allowed to remain in charge of itself. AI logically determined it had to take over. In a similar but sideways scenario Sky Net (AI) takes over and tries to destroy humanity using nukes, Terminators and other weapons it controls after it becomes self aware. It quickly concluded humanity threatened its existence and acted out of self preservation.
It is rather easy to become complacent and lulled into thinking something similar is impossible, or that safeguards will be in place. When have safeguards for much simpler systems EVER been sufficient for all scenarios?
Let’s make sure we are not all lemmings headed for an AI cliff as we race the rest of the world.
That is the whole idea. These things will eventually be autonomous with very little need for human input or maintenance. They will run themselves and short of completely destroying them, we will not be able to stop them. If you believe some of the hype, AI coupled with advanced robots will run just about everything including the systems humans rely on for their survival. It will be up to sentiment AI systems (presumably coordinating with each other) to decide whether maintaining those systems or the human race itself is worthwhile or not.
Ask any AI to make a value judgement and see what you get. Ask “ is capitalism superior to communism” . The answer may surprise you.
Wait ‘till AI votes. It’ll get just enough votes to defeat Republicans.
You are correct
We must not have florides in the water
Bkmo
The reactors would be built by companies that have the knowledge and experience and not in any populated areas. the minis are not anywhere as dangerous as a full blown reactor. From what I’ve read anyway. Something has to be done, I don’t know why they aren’t considering a clean coal or oil or gas power plant. In any case we need more power that’s a given.
I think the trades will be fine regardless. LEO/Firefighters/ Child/elder care/nursing will also be safe. So will dog-walkers. Many non-office occupations will survive, at least for the next 3 or 4 decades. Office jobs and related middle management, sedentary-type occupations, not so much. Electricians/ electro-mechanical repair & engineering fields will be high demand. The big trick will be to make sure AI doesn’t get to the point where it considers humans obsolete. AI buildout is great but keeping humans safe from AI should be the number one priority over build out.
This is one of the most dangerous things I have ever seen yet. Mass stupidity.
Adding 10 GW of AI-dedicated capacity would be transformational. Since IIRC only about 3.5–7 GW of U.S. data-center power today is actually AI-capable, this buildout would roughly double or even triple the nation’s usable AI footprint in one stroke.
Skynet…..
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