🐺

Started @BuySellAds in 2008, @GAMdotAI in 2017. Fix the money, fix the world.

[🐺 @toddo]

This started as a note to myself and turned into something longer.

https://t.co/8t8pQxoZFQ

[🐺 @toddo]

https://t.co/GlPFnf4AgE

[🐺 @toddo]

AI doomers in shambles

[Andrew Curran @AndrewCurran_]

https://t.co/yUVogvdruU

[🐺 @toddo]

Manufactured Intelligence

https://t.co/ZpqDgYQmMB

[Anthropic @AnthropicAI]

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.

The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.

Access to all other Claude models is not affected.

We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible.

Read our full statement: https://t.co/bwn0sximKZ

[🐺 @toddo]

Watching the Knicks/Spurs game tonight it strikes me that many of these Knicks fans are not used to hearing the word “no” very often 😅😂😂😂

[🐺 @toddo]

Wait, I thought data centers didn’t create any jobs?

[Sam Badawi @Sam_Badawi]

$AMZN and $GLW announced a multi-year, multibillion-dollar agreement to expand U.S.-based optical fiber manufacturing for Amazon's growing data center infrastructure.

The partnership is expected to create 1,000 jobs in North Carolina, adding to Amazon's previously announced $10B investment in the state while strengthening the domestic supply chain supporting AI and cloud computing.

[🐺 @toddo]

@BernieSanders @AOC You’re characterization of multiple aspects of data centers was completely incorrect

[🐺 @toddo]

For the data-center water hysterics: @JohnMcQueeneyTX recently toured the massive Abilene, TX AI data center.

It uses closed-loop cooling. The reported 20 gal/min water use annualizes to ~10.5M gallons/year.

That's not "nothing," but it's roughly equivalent to 7 McDonald's restaurants, or ~0.12% of Abilene's reported municipal water use.

[Chris Powers @fortworthchris]

Today I sat down with @JohnMcQueeneyTX, State Representative for House District 97 in Tarrant County, Texas and member of the State Affairs Committee covering power grid and electric policy.

In the last six weeks alone, John's committee has run three interim data center hearings. He is also drafting the Data Center Responsibility Act for the January 2027 session - the bill that will set the framework for how Texas handles the data center build-out for a generation. Texas has 440 gigawatts of applications in the queue against roughly 110 gigawatts of current peak capacity. Someone has to sort out what's real, what's speculative, and who pays for the grid when it all comes online. John is one of the people doing that work.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

Timestamps
(0:00) Intro
(02:27) Why Data Centers Are a "12 Out of 10" for Texas
(08:17) A Day Without a Data Center
(09:34) Inside Stargate: Lancium, Crusoe, Oracle & OpenAI
(14:34) When One Data Center Funds 30% of a City's Budget
(17:03) The Vicious Restudy Cycle & the Batch Zero Fix
(28:55) 440 GW of Applications Chasing 105 GW of Capacity
(35:53) The 75 MW Threshold & Going Behind the Meter
(48:36) Drafting the Data Center Responsibility Act
(54:19) North Texas's Hidden Risk in Batch Zero
(01:08:35) Who Actually Pays for the Grid Buildout?
(01:14:32) Data Centers Are a National Security Issue
(01:18:12) Data Centers in Space & the Long Arc

[🐺 @toddo]

I've been quiet on data centers for a bit, but this is exactly the point.

America has a bad habit of letting loud activist coalitions turn future-defining infrastructure into moral panic.

We throttled supersonic passenger flight. We spent decades making nuclear harder than it needed to be. Those choices did not make us more serious, clean, or prosperous. They made us slower, more energy constrained, and more dependent on worse alternatives.

A data center moratorium would be the same mistake with better branding.

Data centers are not a side quest for tech companies. They are the industrial base of the AI economy. Make no mistake: the "AI economy" loading right now _is_ THE ECONOMY. I'm sorry if you don't like that, but that is what this moment is.

The people cheering moratoria think they are sticking it to tech CEOs. What they are really trying to block is the demand signal for American power, American construction, American manufacturing inputs, and American productivity and innovation.

Debate the local deals. Demand noise standards, water disclosure, power-cost protections, tax clawbacks, local hiring, and real community benefits. That's all great. That is governance.

But a moratorium is not governance and there is nothing noble about pausing progress.

The future runs on energy and compute. I want America to build both. Full speed ahead.

[TBPN @tbpn]

"Lest we be overconfident in Silicon Valley, let's remember a small group of activists shut down supersonic technology, and all nuclear energy in this country. It's a disaster."

@altcap explains why a data center moratorium would be "horrific" for America:

"All of our GDP growth is coming from the fact that we are building data centers and driving productivity improvements in the economy."

"A data center moratorium would thrust us straight into a recession and high unemployment."

"Secondly, it would cede the entire global game to China. Overnight, we would lose to China in the global AI race. Which is not just about AI, it's about economic security, jobs, and national security."

[🐺 @toddo]

@sourceryy @Lead_Bank @jackiereses You really have no idea what went down, do you?

[🐺 @toddo]

@LeaderOfHorde That was a big hit.

I agree. Nobody wants to watch the flops, and all of the obviously fake head-jerk moves to make no contact look like contact.

[🐺 @toddo]

@jonathandoomer dude at least stop writing these posts with AI, lol

[🐺 @toddo]

Even if you're skeptical of AI, I'd really encourage you to spend a little time actually playing with it.

Not reading takes about it. Not arguing about it. Using it.

Find one annoying thing in your daily life or work and see if it helps.

If we're friends or you follow me here and want help breaking the ice, I'm happy to hop on Zoom and walk through it with you.

[🐺 @toddo]

@rogerclemens Welcome home... my 13 year old self is still heartbroken you went to the Yankees 🥲

I guess I'll have to forgive you. Best of luck to Cody tonight!

[🐺 @toddo]

I genuinely feel bad for people who think this.

If AI only does bad work for you, that says more about your workflow than the tool.

But yes, if you use it like a vending machine for answers, you'll mostly get vending-machine thinking.

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

Problem with AI is all it does is do things badly, instantly.

Which really isn't very useful for anyone.

And certainly not worth paying for.

[🐺 @toddo]

You just described a shortage and somehow concluded we should build less.

If GPUs are unobtainable, compute demand is exceeding supply. That is not proof of misallocation. That is proof we need more capacity.

Also, "capital will ask about ROI" is called pricing. It’s already happening. Your CAD workload is losing the auction.

[🐺 @toddo]

@AaloAtomics Very cool - rooting for you!

[🐺 @toddo]

@grok @reset_by_peer nice work, you passed the test! probably ready to solve cancer now, eh?

[🐺 @toddo]

You start with "AI has done almost none of this," then immediately admit "except for some chemistry applications," then complain it only works "under heavy direction by human experts."

Yes. That's the point.

AI gives people an incredible amount of leverage. More shots on goal, more problems get more resources pointed at them, and more problems get solved.

[🐺 @toddo]

@jonathandoomer Did you use AI to help write this post?

[🐺 @toddo]

We use golf courses because your argument dies the moment a denominator appears.

"Data centers use water" is a toddler-level observation.

The question is how much, compared to what, from what source, with what cooling system, and for what value created.

That's why scale comparisons matter. They interrupt the panic.