If the electric grid — particularly the interconnection queue — is already the bottleneck to data center deployment, is something on this scale even close to possible? If it's a rationalized policy framework (big if!), I would guess there's some major permitting reform announcement coming soon.
Also I have no doubt that the timing is deliberate and that this is not happening without government endorsement. If I had to guess the US military also is involved in this and sees this initiative as important for national security.
The companies said they will develop land controlled by Wise Asset to provide on-site natural gas power plant solutions that can be quickly deployed to meet demand in the ERCOT.
The two firms are currently working to develop more than 3,000 acres in the Dallas-Fort Worth region of Texas, with availability as soon as 2027
[0] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/rpower-and-wise-a...
[1.a] https://enchantedrock.com/data-centers/
[1.b] https://www.powermag.com/vistra-in-talks-to-expand-power-for...
I read this but it lacks information: https://apnews.com/article/wind-energy-offshore-turbines-tru...
Governor says our power grid is the best in the universe. Why don't you believe us?
Stop breaking your own rules.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
Let's not ruin HN with overmoderation. This kind of thing is no longer in fashion, right?
I’ve been advocating for a data centre analogue to the Heavy Press Programme for some years [1].
This isn’t quite it. But when I mapped out costs, $1tn over 10 years was very doable. (A lot of it would go to power generation and data transmission infrastructure.)
Could be 5 to 10 with $20+ bn/year in scale and research spend.
Trump is screwing over his China hawks. The anti-China and pro-nuclear lobbies have significant overlap; this could be how Trump keeps e.g. Peter Thiel from going thermonuclear on him.
Intent is a funny thing—people usually assume that good intent is sufficient because it's obvious to themselves, but the rest of us don't have access to that state, so has to be encoded somehow in your actual comment in order to get communicated. I sometimes put it this way: the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I take your point at least halfway though, because it wasn't the worst violation of the guidelines. (Usually I say "this is not a borderline case" but this time it was!) I'm sensitive to regional flamewar because it's tedious and, unlike national flamewar or religious flamewar, it tends to sneak up on people (i.e. we don't realize we're doing it).
I live, work, and posted this from Texas, BTW...
Also it takes up more than one line on my screen. So, not a "one-liner" either. If you think it is, please follow the rules consistently and enforce them by deleting all comments on the site containing one sentence or even paragraph. My comment was a pretty long sentence (136 chars) and wouldn't come close to fitting in the 50 characters of a Git "one-liner".
Otherwise, people will just assume all the comments are filtered through your unpredictable and unfairly biased eye. And like I said (and you didn't answer), this kind of thing is no longer in fashion, right?
None of this is "borderline". I did nothing wrong and you publicly shamed me. Think before you start flamewars on HN. Bad mod.
Data center, AI and nuclear power stations. Three advanced technologies, that's pretty good.
I doubt the US choice of energy generation is ideological as much a practicality. China absolutely dominates renewables with 80% of solar PV modules manufactured in China and 95% of wafers manufactured in China.[3] China installed a world record 277GW of new solar PV generation in 2024 which was a 45% year-on-year increase.[4] By contract, the US only installed ~1/10th this capacity in 2024 with only 14GW of solar PV generation installed in the first half of 2024.[5]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
[2] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/lcoe-and-valu...
[3] https://www.iea.org/reports/advancing-clean-technology-manuf...
[4] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/21/china-hits-277-17-gw-...
[5] https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/quarterly-solar-industry-u...
I'm curious why that is. If we know how to build it, it shouldn't take that long. It's not like we need to move a massive amount of earth or pour a humongous amount of concrete or anything like that, which would actually take time. Then why does it take 15 years to build a reactor with a design that is already tried and tested and approved?
We’re not doing time and tested.
> Department of Energy does not allow "off-the-cuff" designs for reactor
Not by statute!
When you're the biggest fossil fuel producer in the world, it's vital that you stay laser-focused on regulating nuclear power to death in every imaginable detail while you ignore the vast problems with unchecked carbon emissions and gaslight anyone who points them out.
> The president indicated he would use emergency declarations to expedite the project’s development, particularly regarding energy infrastructure.
> “We have to get this stuff built,” Trump said. “They have to produce a lot of electricity and we’ll make it possible for them to get that production done very easily at their own plants.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/21/trump-ai-joi...
Yes, the data center itself will create some permanent jobs (I have no real feel for this, but guessing less than 1000).
There'll be some work for construction folk of course. But again seems like a small number.
I presume though they're counting jobs related to the existence of a data center. As in, if I make use of it do I count that as a "job"?
What if we create a new post to leverage AI generally? Kinda like the way we have a marketing post, and a chunk of the daily work there is Adwords.
Once we start gustimamating the jobs created by the existence of an AI data center, we're in full speculation mode. Any number really can be justified.
Of course ultimately the number is meaningless. It won't create that many "local jobs" - indeed most of those jobs, to the degree they exist at all, will likely be outside the US.
So you don't need to wait for a post-mortem. The number is sucked out of thin air with no basis in reality for the point of making a good political sound bite.
Edit: Hey we can solve the obesity crisis AND preserve jobs during the singularity!! Win win!
The Flood Control Act [0], TVA, Heavy Press, etc.
They all created generally useful infrastructure, that would be used for a variety of purposes over the subsequent decades.
The federal government creating data center capacity, at scale, with electrical, water, and network hookups, feels very similar. Or semiconductor manufacture. Or recapitalizing US shipyards.
It might be AI today, something else tomorrow. But there will always be a something else.
Honestly, the biggest missed opportunity was supporting the Blount Island nuclear reactor mass production facility [1]. That was a perfect opportunity for government investment to smooth out market demand spikes. Mass deployed US nuclear in 1980 would have been a game changer.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_Control_Act_of_1928
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_Power_Systems#Const...
With a state like Texas and a Federal Government thats onboard these permits would be a much smaller issue. The press conference makes this seem more like, "drill baby drill" (drilling natural gas) and directly talking about them spinning up their own power plants.
[1] https://www.kunr.org/npr-news/2024-09-11/how-memphis-became-...
[2] https://www.gevernova.com/gas-power/resources/case-studies/t...
One of the big issues that have occurred (in the US especially) is, that for 20+ years there were no new plants built. This caused a large void in the talent pool, inside and outside the industry. That fact, along with others has caused many problems with some projects of recent years in the US.
I'm sure this will easily be true if you count AI as entities capable of doing jobs. Actually, they don't really touch that (if AI develops too quickly, there will be a lot of unemployment to contend with!) but I get the national security aspect (China is full speed ahead on AI, and by some measurements, they are winning ATM).
Seeing how Elon deceives advertisers with false impressions, I could see him giving the same strategy a strong vote of confidence (with the bullshit metrics to back it!)
There is this pesky detail about manufacturing 100k treadmills but lets not get bothered by details now, the current must flow
Yes, a very interesting project; similar power output to an AP1000. Would have really changed the energy landscape to have such a deployable power station. https://econtent.unm.edu/digital/collection/nuceng/id/98/rec...
Perhaps.
For context see https://masdar.ae/en/news/newsroom/uae-president-witnesses-l... which is a bit further south than the bulk of Texas and has not yet been built; 5.2GW of panels, 19GWh of storage. I have seen suggestions on Linkedin that it will be insufficient to cover a portion of days over the winter, meaning backup power is required.
Even when accounting for announced capacity expansion, the USA is currently on target to remain a very small player in the global market with announced capacity of 33GW/yr polysilicon, 13GW/yr ingots, 24GW/yr wafers, 49GW/yr cells and 83GW/yr modules (13GW/yr sovereign supply chain limitation).
In 2024, China completed sovereign manufacturing of ~540GW of modules[2] including all precursor polysilicon, ingots, wafers and cells. China also produced and exported polysilicon, ingots, wagers and cells that were surplus to domestic demand. Many factories in China's production chain are operating at half their maximum production capacity due to global demand being less than half of global manufacturing capacity.[3]
[1] https://seia.org/research-resources/solar-storage-supply-cha...
[2] Estimated figure extrapolated from Jan-Oct 2024 data (10 months). https://taiyangnews.info/markets/china-solar-pv-output-10m-2...
[3] https://dialogue.earth/en/business/chinese-solar-manufacture...
> there are no working analogs in the US to use as an approved guide
small reactors have been installed on ships and submarines for over 70(!) years now. Reading up on the very first one, USS Nautilus, "the conceptual design of the first nuclear submarine began in March 1950" it took a couple of years? So why is it so unthinkably hard 70 years later, honest question? "Military doesn't care about cost" is not good enough, there are currently about >100 active ones with who knows how many hundreds in the past, so they must have cracked the cost formula at some point, besides by now we have hugely better tech than the 50's, so what gives?
This completely ignores storage and the ability to control the output depending on needs. Instead of LCOE the LFSCOE number makes much more sense in practical terms.
Two Toshiba 4S reactors at the 50 MW version can cost about $3,000,000,000.
Two of those produces 100 MW.
They don't require refueling for around 30 years. $6,000,000,000 to power a 100 MW datacenter when we're talking about $500,000,000,000 is not too dramatic. Especially consider the amortized yearly cost.
112 reactors.
A gigawatt each.
Over 10 years ago.
The venture was announced at the White House, by the President, who has committed to help it by using executive orders to speed things up.
It might not have been voted by congress or whatever, but just those things makes it pretty clear the government provides more than just "moral support".
[1] https://www.lazard.com/media/gjyffoqd/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...
If these guys really have $500 billion, they're going to find a way to get electricity.