How Much Power Does American AI Need?

Eric Schmidt says American AI needs somewhere between 60 and 80 gigawatts of power to get through 2030 and 2031. One gigawatt costs about $50 billion and is about one nuclear power plant, and new plants are not going up at a high rate. He leaves open whether the new power can be financed.

China has infinite energy, most of it renewable, a buildout the United States said it would do 10 years ago and failed to do. Interconnection queues do not run seven years, and China does not have the kind of debates. Data centers are going up at massive scale. Even with a much more restricted financial market, China has funded the startups. DeepSeek is seeking funding and just did a huge raise. The funding looks like it is going to show up. Investing in DeepSeek is illegal under United States law. He tried. In China you never know if the money is the government or the private sector. Friends in China say it is the private sector and the economics are going to work. China is on its way and still does not have the chips.

The United States has the smart people, the controversy, and funding markets deep enough to raise $50 billion on a text message. The American financial industry is financing the hobbies. The gaps are energy and data centers. An old quote from de Tocqueville, 250 years ago, called America great because of the optimism of its people, the abundance of the land, and the absence of a king. Empty land can hold the data centers, which helps the local economy, and the power plants have to be built alongside them.