I am proposing that U.S. government should seriously examine building Data Centers on its military bases around the world.
Let me explain.
AI = Electricity
AI runs on compute. Compute needs chips. Chips need data centers. And Data Centers need power, in fact lots and lots of it. So much so that Data Centers are now designated in terms of MWs/GWs and not in terms of its chip capacity.
America Has Lost Its Ability to Build
US has long since changed from a building economy to a consumption economy. It hasn’t added serious power capacity in decades. In fact, it’s not just power plants, it has not built anything meaningful in quite sometime.Nuclear and hydro are not immediate options, while wind and solar plants are now explicitly discouraged.
Meanwhile, China Keeps Adding Capacity
China, meanwhile, has been building power capacity across all types: coal, hydro, nuclear, solar, wind. The political system and culture of building infrastructure at scale and on time ensures that whatever power is required by AI will be easily met.
While America consumes, China builds. The gap is huge, increasing by the day and is unlikely to be bridged any time soon.
Clear And Present Danger
In the coming decades, control of chips, compute, data, and power will shape the way we all live. Between a Chinese leadership and a U.S. leadership, the latter is always preferable. US as we are increasingly seeing is not at all perfect, but its elections and democracy will always ensure the safety for the rest of the world. However on the count of power capacity alone, there is a clear and present danger that China will win the AI race.
Can the U.S. Also Outsource Its Data Centers To The Rest Of The World?
The U.S. has successfully outsourced its manufacturing and IT services to the rest of the world. Can it also do so with Data Centers? While prima facie it appears to be a no brainer, most host countries may put their own conditions on the control of data and therefore not an easy path to pursue.
A New Use for Old Bases
One alternative is to use the existing excess infrastructure of U.S. military bases around the world. Their number varies from 120+ to 750. Most of them should be having excess land. Cordoning off 50–100 acres for a Data Center should not be a problem. Bids can be called, inviting only American companies to come and build the Data Centers there. Wherever required power plants can quickly be built by local companies in the host countries (with investment from US PE funds) as they are not suffering from the regulatory capture that we have seen in the U.S. This way US companies can ramp up the Data Center capacity very quickly. Since the Data Centers are technically built on U.S. land, the host country cannot demand access to the data.
Conclusion
The last decade has taught us the way we can use excess capacity in existing infrastructure, be it Uber for cars, AirBnB for hotel rooms or the Gig economy for human talent and services. The next one now could be for building Data Centers. Of course there are number of issues that need to be thought through, but for the sake of the rest of the world and for its own sake it is an idea that US must explore.
Hari’s Curries
A Buffet of Reflections.