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Articles about Data-center cooling from podcasts, articles and papers, with links to the original sources.
On Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, one speaker argued that hyperscalers could win communities over with cheaper power, school programs and better-looking buildings. A fellow panelist replied that the fight has already been politicized beyond what benefits can fix — and the viral water figures at the center of it describe the whole country, not the town being asked to host the building.
On The Diary of a CEO, economist Steve Keen argued that the only thing likely to slow the race for frontier AI is its sheer cost and the physical resources it needs — and that the company left standing will be Chinese. Other speakers pushed back with military necessity and the long unprofitable years of earlier internet giants, and Keen pointed to the recent Kimi release as his example.
Ramez Naam puts himself between those who dismiss orbital data centers and those expecting an imminent boom. He estimates that launch prices need to fall to roughly a quarter to a tenth of current levels for space-based AI to compete on cost. But cheaper flights leave a separate hurdle: building and launching enough hardware, with permission and reliability to keep flying.
Ramez Naam passed on Panthalassa’s early Bitcoin-mining pitch, then invested twice in 2026 at much higher valuations. The company now proposes wave-powered AI computing, cooled by seawater and connected by satellite. Its $140 million Series B is intended to support an Oregon pilot factory and northern-Pacific pilots; cheap electricity and longer-lived chips remain prospective benefits.
Meta says its infrastructure investments generated tax revenue that paid $50,000 teacher bonuses in Richland Parish. Its community commitments prompted a bargaining argument on Moonshots: towns hosting AI data centers should negotiate benefits, with Alex Wissner-Gross proposing “universal basic electricity.” The unresolved question is how to turn an attractive offer into lasting local gains.