Paris Marx

Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us, made in partnership with The Nation magazine.

I'm your host, Paris Marx.

And this week, before we get to my guest, who is actually sort of me, but the interviewer is the guest sort of this time.

If you remember from last time I released a book, this is what I like to do when a book comes out anyway.

Thanks for joining us on this special episode of Tech Won't Save Us.

Ingrid Burrington, who interviewed me in this episode, is the author of Networks of New York and host of the RipCorp podcast.

Tech Won't Save Us is made in partnership with The Nation magazine and is hosted by me, Paris Marx.

Production is by Kyla Hewson.

It's Wednesday, October the 21st, 2026.

Yesterday, we had the young Canadian journalist, technology critic, Paris Marx, on the show.

He has a very impressive new book out called Hyperscale, The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires.

Paris Marx is looking down on Silicon Valley from the west coast of Canada.

And of course, Canadians have tended to be very perceptive, full of insights when it comes to looking at America.

Another of our favorite guests on the show is my old friend Stephen Marsh.

Yeah, former head of the Bank of England.

Yeah, but when he was head of the Bank of England, he got them through an enormous crisis and had to cooperate a great deal with Europe.

Another concern here is the echo of the past history of industrial ventures in the Point Tupper area that have not measured up to the hype that came when they were announced, especially the heavy water plant and the federal gypsum plant.

Paris Marx is the host of the podcast Tech Won't Save Us and author of the book Hyperscale, The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires.

I really question whether it would ever happen, you know, on the one hand, because, of course, Everwind has proposed this green hydrogen facility, you know, in the past, and that was supposed to be moving forward.

And, of course, they still say it's going to get built.

which is the kind of thing you can take to a bank and use as collateral for a loan, especially when the lease is signed with a company like Anthropic that is valued at $1.2 trillion.

Since 2022, about 75% of the gains in the S&P 500 stock market index have come from just seven tech companies, all working in AI.

So for all of Paris Marx's doubts about whether the data center will get off the ground, it's certainly helpful if you're going to raise funds from investors.

And you have to remember, there are two parts to this project, the data center and the network of windmills.

We'll speak to Democratic congressional candidate Justin Pearson in Memphis, Tennessee, where Elon Musk is building massive data centers.

We'll also talk to the tech journalist Paris Marx, author of the new book Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires.

Data centers have become a huge issue in the midterms because people are paying the higher power bills because of them.

They're seeing the effects of all these AI, uh, tools that, uh, are proliferating through our society at the moment.

Coming up, we'll look at how the backlash against data centers to power AI has become a political flashpoint in the midterm elections.

We'll go to Memphis to speak with Democratic congressional candidate Justin Pearson, where Elon Musk is building massive data centers.

Then we'll talk to Paris Marx, author of Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires.

Stay with us.