This isn’t spin. It’s seasoned analysis.
One Small Step
The internet has given us many gifts. Cat videos. Conspiracy theories. People who believe the Earth is flat while using GPS satellites to drive to Walmart. And now, according to social media, China apparently has giant AI data centers floating in space, sucking up...
How Two Executive Orders Became One Giant AI Conspiracy
I've been a reporter long enough to know that whenever somebody begins a sentence with, "They don't want you to know this," I immediately want to know two things. First, who exactly is "they"? Second, did anybody actually read the document? The latest internet panic...
The Robot Wanted Proof I Was Me
It started with a puddle. Not one of those biblical homeowner catastrophes where water is shooting through the ceiling and the neighbors gather in lawn chairs to watch the excitement. Just a puddle. Clear water. Under the air conditioner handler in my garage. The unit...
The Data Center You Never See
"I hate data centers." A woman wrote that recently. I believe her. A lot of people do. They worry about water. They worry about electricity. They worry about giant industrial buildings appearing where ranches, farms, forests, and open land once stood. Those concerns...
The AI Water Grab That Might Not Be
The headline practically writes itself. "AI Data Center Sues for Colorado River Water." Well, there you go. Somewhere, a Facebook post just picked up another thousand shares. The villain is obvious. The giant AI company wants to suck the Colorado River dry so people...
Florida’s AI Moment
A funny thing happened while everybody was arguing about artificial intelligence. Floridians started using it. Not debating it. Not attending conferences about it. Not forming committees to study it. Using it. A recent report estimates that nearly two million Florida...
Why So Many Data Centers? Why The Rush?
Everywhere I go, somebody eventually asks the same two questions. Why do we need so many data centers? And why are companies in such a hurry to build them? Fair questions. Because if you're sitting in a county commission meeting watching residents argue over farmland,...
We Didn’t Ask 3,000 Counties to Build the Interstate Highway System
Spend enough time following data center debates, and you start feeling like you've wandered into a town hall version of Groundhog Day. The names change. The counties change. The developers change. But the script stays remarkably consistent. A company announces a...
If You’re Signing NDAs With Billion-Dollar Corporations, Who Exactly Do You Work For?
The problem isn't Meta. The problem isn't data centers. The problem isn't even artificial intelligence. The problem is when the people elected to represent the public start keeping secrets from the public. That's where this story begins. Not in Silicon Valley. Not in...
Folks, This Ain’t About the Data Center Building
The fight over data centers isn't really about data centers. It's about the largest infrastructure buildout America has seen since World War II. Folks, this ain't about the data center building. That's like saying World War II was about a shipyard. The shipyard...
Hill County, Texas Reality Check
For a few weeks, Hill County, Texas became a folk hero. Residents packed meetings. Activists celebrated. A Texas county had done what communities across the country have been trying to do: Put the brakes on the AI land rush. Then the lawyers arrived. On Thursday (June...
Monterey Park Just Fired a Shot Heard Around Silicon Valley
Something happened in California last Tuesday that should have every data center developer, utility executive, politician, and AI evangelist paying attention. The voters of Monterey Park didn't just reject a proposed data center. They banned them. Not temporarily. Not...
The First Thing I Did Was Nothing
I've been watching the circus surrounding Scott Pelley and CBS News this week, and it reminded me of something I learned a long time ago. Sometimes the smartest thing a new editor can do is absolutely nothing. Not forever. Just long enough to understand what you're...
The NDAA Won’t Stop Your Data Center
Every war produces rumors. The digital war over data centers is no different. Lately, I've been seeing social media posts claiming the National Defense Authorization Act—the NDAA—is some kind of silver bullet that can stop data centers because they supposedly contain...
The Chokepoint Nobody Saw Coming
Back in 2024, some very smart people at Epoch AI sat down and tried to figure out what would stop artificial intelligence from growing. They looked at power generation. They looked at semiconductor factories. They looked at the number of advanced computer chips the...
Isaac Cubillos
This isn’t journalism for the polite table.
This is truth with grit under its nails and dirt on its boots.