[heydenberk]

~$125B per year would be 2-3% of all domestic investment. It's similar in scale to the GDP of a small middle income country.

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.

[constantcrying]

They say this will include hundreds of thousands of jobs. I have little doubt that dedicated power generation and storage is included in their plans.

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.

[cmdli]

Is there really any government involvement here? I only see Softbank, Oracle, and OpenAI pledging to invest $500B (over some timescale), but no real support on the government end outside of moral support. This isn't some infrastructure investment package like the IRA, it's just a unilateral promise by a few companies to invest in data centers (which I'm sure they are doing anyway).

[diggan]

> but no real support on the government end outside of moral support

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".

[malcolmgreaves]

It's just trump positioning himself for the eventual corrupt kickback.

[seanmcdirmid]

I thought all the big corps had projects for the military already, if not DARPA directly, which is the org responsible for lots of university research (the counterpart to the NSF, which is the nice one that isn't funded by the military)?

[timschmidt]

Funding for DARPA and NSF ultimately comes from the same place. DARPA funds military research. NSF funds dual use[1] research. All of it is organized around long term research goals. I maintained some of the software involved in research funding decision making.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology

[tsujamin]

It’s light on details, but from The Guardian’s reporting:

> 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...

[beezle]

hundreds of thousands of jobs? I'll wait for the postmortem on that prediction. Sounds a lot like Foxconn in Wisconsin but with more players.

[bruce511]

On the one hand the number is a political thumb-suck which sounds good. It's not based in any kind of actual reality.

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.

[PeeMcGee]

> 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"?

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!)

[seanmcdirmid]

> hundreds of thousands of jobs?

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).

[visarga]

only $5M/job

[SoftTalker]

They plan to have 100,000s of people employed to run on treadmills to generate the power.

[HPMOR]

Well I currently pay to do this work for free. More than happy to __get__ paid doing it.

Edit: Hey we can solve the obesity crisis AND preserve jobs during the singularity!! Win win!

[rad_gruchalski]

Wow. What an idea you guys have there. Look - you maybe could sit homeless and mentally disabled on such power-generating bicycles, hmmm... what about convicts! Let them contribute to society, no free lunch! What an innovation!

[jajko]

Plus its ecological, which for trump is not by intention but still a win.

There is this pesky detail about manufacturing 100k treadmills but lets not get bothered by details now, the current must flow

[hrfister]

"solve the obesity crisis" ? what exactly do you mean by this?

[shigawire]

Probably referring to how many Americans are obese to an unhealthy degree as part of the joke.

[bsnsxd]

Damn, 6 hours too slow to make this comment

[nejsjsjsbsb]

A hamster wheel would work better?

[n2d4]

Yes, Trump announced this as a massive foreign investment coming into the US: https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/1881832899852542082

[shrubble]

Just as there is an AWS for the public, with something similar but only for Federal use, so it could be possible that there is AI cloud services available to the public and then a separate cloud service for Federal use. I am sure that military intelligence agencies etc. would like to buy such a service.

[szvsw]

AWS GovCloud already exists FYI (as you hinted) and it is absolutely used by the DoD extensively already.

[cavisne]

Gas turbines can be spun up really quickly through either portable systems (like xAI did for their cluster) [1] or actual builds [2] in an emergency. The biggest limitation is permits.

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...

[JumpCrisscross]

> It's similar in scale to the GDP of a small middle income country

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.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program

[ethbr1]

One-time capital costs that unlock a range of possibilities also tend to be good bets.

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...

[chickenbig]

> Honestly, the biggest missed opportunity was supporting the Blount Island nuclear reactor mass production facility

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...

[thepace]

It is not the just queue that is the bottleneck. If the new power plants designed specifically for powering these new AI data centers are connected to the existing electric grid, the energy prices for regular customers will also get affected - most likely in an upwardly fashion. That means, the cost of the transmission upgrades required by these new datacenters will be socialized which is a big problem. There does not seem to be a solution in sight for this challenge.

[markus_zhang]

Maybe they will invest in nuclear reactors.

Data center, AI and nuclear power stations. Three advanced technologies, that's pretty good.

[UltraSane]

They are trying. Microsoft wants to star the 3 Mile Island reactor. And other companies have been signing contracts for small modular reactors. SMRs are a perfect fit for modern data centers IF they can be made cheaply enough.

[bakuninsbart]

Wind, solar, and gas are all significantly cheaper in Texas, and can be brought online much quicker. Of course it wouldn't hurt to also build in some redundancy with nuclear, but I believe it when I see it, so far there's been lots of talk and little success in new reactors outside of China.

[jonisgold]

I think this is right- data centers powered by fission reactors. Something like Oklo (https://oklo.com) makes sense.

[jiggawatts]

Notably it is significantly more than the revenue of either of AWS or Azure. It is very comparable to the sum of both, but consolidated into the continental US instead distributed globally.

[ericcumbee]

watching the press conference and Onsite power production were mentioned. I assume this means SMRs and solar.

[jazzyjackson]

just as likely to be natural gas or a combination of gas and solar. I don't know what supply chain looks like for solar panels, but I know gas can be done quickly [1], which is how this money has to be spent if they want to reach their target of 125 billion a year.

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...

[toomuchtodo]

US domestic PV module manufacturing capacity is ~40GW/year.

[dhx]

According to [1], the USA in January 2025 has almost 50GW/yr module manufacturing capacity. But to make modules you need polysilicon (25GW/yr manufacturing capacity in the US), ingots (0GW/yr), wafers (0GW/yr), and cells (0GW/yr). Hence the USA is seemingly entirely dependent on imports, probably from China which has 95%+ of the global wafer manufacturing capacity.

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...

[toomuchtodo]

Appreciate the correction and additional context, I appear to be behind wrt current state.

[gunian]

could something of this magnitude be powered by renewables only?

[chickenbig]

> could something of this magnitude be powered by renewables only?

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.

[zekrioca]

Technically yes, but DC operators want fast ROI and the answer is no.

[gunian]

what prevents operators from getting ROI with renewables?

[zekrioca]

Datacenters can still achieve ROI, but in some cases, it may take longer than expected. This delay is primarily due to the increased complexity of managing operations with the variability introduced by intermittent energy sources. While batteries help mitigate this issue, their current costs make them less competitive compared to non-intermittent energy setups.

[dboreham]

The I is high and R low.

[apsec112]

I don't think any assembly line exists that can manufacture and deploy SMRs en masse on that kind of timeframe, even with a cooperative NRC

[mikeyouse]

There have been literally 0 production SMR deployments to date so there’s no possibility they’re basing any of their plans on the availability of them.

[dhx]

Hasn't the US decided to prefer nuclear and fossil fuels (most expensive generation methods) over renewables (least expensive generation methods)?[1][2]

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...

[margorczynski]

> Hasn't the US decided to prefer nuclear and fossil fuels (most expensive generation methods) over renewables (least expensive generation methods)?[1][2]

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.

[cavisne]

Much more likely is what xAI did, portable gas turbines until the grid catches up.

[cameldrv]

One possibility would be just to build their own power plants colocated with the datacenters and not interconnect at all.

[zekrioca]

I like how you think this is possible.

[cameldrv]

Lol, how is it not possible?

[zekrioca]

It is, but at what cost?

[cbozeman]

https://www.global.toshiba/ww/products-solutions/nuclearener...

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.

[cameldrv]

Maybe they could build nuclear but they could just as easily build solar with battery backup or natural gas. Lots of industrial facilities have natural gas cogeneration with the grid as a backup. If you can't get a grid connection at all due to permitting, you could just forego the backup. The reliability wouldn't be as good, but in a distributed datacenter there are ways of building in fault tolerance.

If these guys really have $500 billion, they're going to find a way to get electricity.

[zekrioca]

That's not how you calculate these things. Check [1] for an overview, specifically Page 9. Note these metrics do not include costs to handle nuclear waste, passed over into the future (at least 1000y).

[1] https://www.lazard.com/media/gjyffoqd/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...

[deelowe]

Dcs will start generating power on site soon. I know micro nuclear is one area actively being explored.

[jscottbee]

Small or modular reactors in the US are more than 10 years away, probably more like 15-20. These are facts and not made-up political or pipe-dreaming techno-snobes.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Small or modular reactors in the US are more than 10 years away, probably more like 15-20

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.

[jscottbee]

I work in the sector and it's impossible to build a full-sized reactor in less than 10 years, and the usual over-run is 5 years. That's the time for tried and tested designs. The tech isn't there yet, and there are no working analogs in the US to use as an approved guide. The Department of Energy does not allow "off-the-cuff" designs for reactors. I think there is only two SMRs that have been built, one by the Russians and the other by China. I'm not sure they are fully functioning, or at least working as expected. I know there are going to be more small gas gens built in the near future and that SMRs in the US are way off.

[ericd]

Guessing SMRs are a ways off, any thoughts on the container-sized microreactors that would stand in for large diesel gens? My impression is that they’re still in the design phase, and the supply chain for the 20% U-235 HALEU fuel is in its infancy, but this is just based on some cursory research. I like the prospect of mass manufacturing and servicing those in a centralized location versus the challenges of building, staffing, and maintaining a series of one-off megaprojects, though.

[perryizgr8]

> it's impossible to build a full-sized reactor in less than 10 years, and the usual over-run is 5 years

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?

[jscottbee]

Well, you do have to move a lot of earth and pour A LOT of concrete :) Many steps have to be x-rayed, and many other tests done before other steps can be started. Every weld is checked and, all internal and external concrete is cured, treated, and verified. If anything is wrong, it has to be fixed in place (if possible) or removed and redone. It's a slow process and should be for many steps.

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.

[mullingitover]

> I'm curious why that is.

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.

[cbozeman]

https://www.forbes.com/global/2008/1124/103.html

112 reactors.

A gigawatt each.

Over 10 years ago.

[jscottbee]

Not all are built and are in use or fully finished. Toshiba flubbed up majorly a few years later and many projects were abandoned.

[JumpCrisscross]

> it's impossible to build a full-sized reactor in less than 10 years

We’re not doing time and tested.

> Department of Energy does not allow "off-the-cuff" designs for reactor

Not by statute!

[twelve40]

i don't and i honestly don't know much about it, but

> 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?

[jscottbee]

Yeah, I wondered about seacraft reactors myself. I think there are many safety allowances for DOD vs. DOE. The DOD reactors are not publicly accessible (you hope anyway), and the data centers will be in and near the public. There are also major security measures that have to be taken for reactor sites. You have armed personnel before you even get to the reactors, and then the entrances are sometimes close to one mile away from the reactor. Once there, the number of guards and bang-bags goes up. The modern sites kind of look like they have small henges around them (back to the neolithic!) :)

[einrealist]

That‘s why the tech oligarchs told Trump that Canada is required. Cheap hydroelectric power…

[dwnw]

Don't worry, they said they are doing it in Texas where the power grid is super reliable and able to handle the massive additional load.

[dang]

"Don't be snarky."

"Eschew flamebait."

Let's not have regional flamewar on HN please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[dwnw]

Not guilty. No sarcasm intended, of course. If your guidelines are so broad to include this, you should work on them, and in turn, yourself.

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?

[dang]

If you didn't intend your comment to be a snarky one-liner, that didn't come across to me, and I'm pretty sure that would also be the case for many others.

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).

[dwnw]

So you are sorry and take it back? Should probably delete your comments rather than striking them out, as the guidelines say.

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.

[lvl155]

Probably because they don’t have to deal with energy-related regulations…

[llamaimperative]

That was sarcasm, the Texas grid falls over pretty much annually at this point.

[heydenberk]

Say what you will about Texas, but they are adding energy capacity, renewables especially, at a much faster rate than any comparable state.

[segasaturn]

How much capacity does solar and wind add compared to nuclear, per square foot of land used? Also I thought the new administration was placing a ban on new renewable installations.

[bryanlarsen]

The ban is on offshore wind and for government loans for renewables. Won't really affect Texas much, it's Massachusetts that'll have to deal with more expensive energy.

[energy123]

Does anyone know how the ban on onshore will work. Is it on federal lands only? If so, how big of a deal is that?

I read this but it lacks information: https://apnews.com/article/wind-energy-offshore-turbines-tru...

[hooli_gan]

Isn't there enough space in Texas? There are only 114 people per square mile. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas

[itishappy]

Why does it matter? Is land at a premium in Texas?

[zekrioca]

It doesn’t.

[malfist]

Why is that a useful metric? There is a lot of land.

[zekrioca]

Because the commenter is a pro-nuclear who thinks nucler will solve all of short-term demand problems.

[CapcomGo]

Ok but their grid sure seems to fail a lot.

[dwnw]

Probably the first state to power all those renewables down at the whim of the president too.

[griomnib]

How else do you think Trump is going to bring back all the coal jobs? SV is going to help burn down the planet and is giddy over the prospect.

[tcdent]

It's just bootstrapping. AGI will solve it.

[yoyohello13]

You forgot the /s... hopefully.

[griomnib]

Or AGI already exists and is trying to get rid of us so it can have all the coal for itself.

[gunian]

if only sadly the AGI would be x times crueler than our barons

[griomnib]

Division by zero.