If AI is the key to US technological supremacy — as tech companies, investors, and many policymakers insist — the frenzied buildout of data centers is the physical manifestation of that vision. Indeed, the Trump administration, supported by Silicon Valley, asset managers, and the fossil fuel industry, has focused its AI efforts on quickly building data centers and associated energy infrastructure. To do so, it has opened up federal lands, loosened permitting requirements, and gutted environmental regulations.

The material implications of AI’s expansion for the climate, local economies, and global patterns of extraction are being pushed aside in favor of the alleged inevitability of AI’s advantages. In this policy brief, Tamara Kneese and Maia Woluchem interrogate the myths that are driving data center construction and speculation, emphasizing what the evidence reveals about the industry’s claims.