Americans now oppose new AI data centers by roughly three to one, ranking them below coal plants and nuclear power stations, and towns across the country are passing moratoriums faster than tech companies can build. In this video, I look at the data center backlash: what holds up in the complaints about water, noise, and electricity bills, why the tech industry’s cash offers keep failing, and how xAI powered its Memphis supercomputer with a fleet of unpermitted gas turbines. Then we follow the money, from CoreWeave’s distressed credit default swaps to the investment-grade bonds landing in pension funds, and ask who is actually holding the risk if the AI boom turns out to be a bubble, with a look back at the railroad bubble of 1873.
