The World Is Scrambling to Catch Up With AI

Start with the fossil fuel story, because it's the one with the longest tail.

A new report from EDF and Atlas Public Policy dropped this week, and the headline is Stark Planned Fossil Fuel Capacity in the U.S. Development Pipeline Jumped from 5% of All New Capacity in 2024 to 30% by Q2 of 2026.

And if the trend holds, it could hit 70% by the end of the decade.

60, 8 gigawatts of new fossil fuel capacity by 2030.

That's a 45% increase from just six months ago.

Here's what's driving it, AI data centers.

These things are power hungry in a way that makes your old server room look like a lava lamp.

And the current administration has thrown renewables under the bus, stopped work orders, blocked permits, stripped tax incentives, while simultaneously throwing the door wide open for gas.

Here's the painful kicker, new solar, and wind still undercut natural gas on cost.

$68 to $69 per megawatt, hour versus $90 for new combined cycle gas.

We're paying more for worse outcomes.

This isn't an energy policy.

It's a political statement written in concrete and steel that we'll be paying for 30 years from now.

For anyone in AEC or data center development, this reshapes your infrastructure planning conversations.

The energy cost assumptions you put in your pro formas six months ago.

Revisit them, and then revisit them again.

Now, here's where the editorial thread gets interesting, because the fossil fuel boom and the AI boom are the same story wearing different hats.

The energy crisis is the AI crisis, and the Internet's having its own version of the same problem.

Too much traffic, not enough control over what's legitimate and what's a bot in a trench coat environment.

Enter Blackwall, Estonian web security firm.

Just raised $100 million at a $2.2 billion valuation.

That's a four times increase from their last round.

four times in this environment.

Their thing is digital fingerprinting and on-device AI to tell the difference between a legitimate AI agent doing your shopping and a rogue bot trying to scrape or attack a site.

And they're not competing head on with Cloudflare or Akamai.

Start with the fossil fuel story, because it's the one with the longest tail.

A new report from EDF and Atlas Public Policy dropped this week, and the headline is Stark Planned Fossil Fuel Capacity in the U.S. Development Pipeline Jumped from 5% of All New Capacity in 2024 to 30% by Q2 of 2026.

And if the trend holds, it could hit 70% by the end of the decade.

60, 8 gigawatts of new fossil fuel capacity by 2030.

That's a 45% increase from just six months ago.

Here's what's driving it, AI data centers.

These things are power hungry in a way that makes your old server room look like a lava lamp.

And the current administration has thrown renewables under the bus, stopped work orders, blocked permits, stripped tax incentives, while simultaneously throwing the door wide open for gas.

Here's the painful kicker, new solar, and wind still undercut natural gas on cost.

$68 to $69 per megawatt, hour versus $90 for new combined cycle gas.

We're paying more for worse outcomes.

This isn't an energy policy.

It's a political statement written in concrete and steel that we'll be paying for 30 years from now.

For anyone in AEC or data center development, this reshapes your infrastructure planning conversations.

The energy cost assumptions you put in your pro formas six months ago.

Revisit them, and then revisit them again.

Now, here's where the editorial thread gets interesting, because the fossil fuel boom and the AI boom are the same story wearing different hats.

The energy crisis is the AI crisis, and the Internet's having its own version of the same problem.

Too much traffic, not enough control over what's legitimate and what's a bot in a trench coat environment.

Enter Blackwall, Estonian web security firm.

Just raised $100 million at a $2.2 billion valuation.

That's a four times increase from their last round.

four times in this environment.

Their thing is digital fingerprinting and on-device AI to tell the difference between a legitimate AI agent doing your shopping and a rogue bot trying to scrape or attack a site.

And they're not competing head on with Cloudflare or Akamai.