Co-host Bob Seidenschwarz talks to Jennifer Warren about data centers and the AI trade driving economic growth. A new white paper “AI Buildout: What You Need to Know” sparked the conversation.
A few themes covered, based on the timeline’s order, include:
Cutting through misinformation
Economic growth and diffusion
The economics of scale
Select power and energy
Jobs and local impact
Geopolitics and national security
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Key questions and edited responses
Talk Back Missoula radio show on KGVO — September 17, 2026
Q — Bob: Give our audience the foundational overview: what’s actually happening with AI and data centers right now?
A — Jennifer: The white paper report splits the story in two: the technology side (moving three times faster than prior IT waves like the internet or mobile/cloud) and the economic side, which shows up physically in data centers. Data center development is spreading across many regions and is now one of the economy’s key growth drivers — supporting jobs and manufacturing well beyond the data center itself. Energy use and water use are real concerns, but the industry is trending toward more sustainable builds, including a mix of renewables, nuclear and new natural gas capacity for firm power.
Q — N. caller: Pushed back on AI alarmism, arguing AI has existed for decades and fear-mongering is irresponsible.
A — Jennifer: Agreed that AI as a technology dates to the 1950s, at the dawn of the modern computer. There’s a lot of misrepresentation driven by various agendas, and cutting through that noise — separating the technology itself from the data center buildout around it — is exactly what her report tries to do.
Q — R. caller: If AI and AI data centers were limited, how would that affect consumers, and would there be a backlash given how much AI already touches everyday products?
A — Jennifer: Data center growth directly reflects how the economy is shifting — more online shopping such as Amazon, Walmart and more streaming (e.g. Netflix, whose subscription price increases reflect the rising cost of the cloud infrastructure behind it). Restricting data center supply would restrict the digital services people already rely on and are demanding more of. Communities that resist development don’t stop the growth — they just push it to another city, county, or state, along with the jobs and manufacturing activity that follow it.
White paper link
AI Buildout: What You Need to Know
Several storylines about the AI infrastructure buildout intersect, overlap and are conflated based on the stakeholder group. This reporting highlights specific aspects related to investors and riskta…
Q — Bob: Can you speak to the “multiplier effect” — the idea that a period of heavy infrastructure buildout eventually spins off broader innovation and opportunity, the way past industrial revolutions did?
A — Jennifer: Construction jobs are temporary and always draw complaints (“boom and bust,” as with the shale boom in Midland, Texas), but this buildout is diffuse — spreading across the whole country rather than concentrated in one place. The jobs that remain carry real economic benefit: data centers pay significant taxes, support an ecosystem of surrounding businesses, and (citing Microsoft’s public figures) generate hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in local economic development. They’re also clean, low-traffic critical infrastructure — not the kind of industrial neighbor people often assume.
Q — H. caller: Wouldn’t distributed power (rooftop solar, batteries) or smaller, distributed data centers built on old industrial sites be easier than huge new plants? Also, how much longer can this level of investment — which he said is “keeping the stock market afloat” — actually continue?
A — Jennifer: Data center scale is a market decision driven by the economics of the underlying hardware: GPUs are extremely expensive (roughly $50 billion per gigawatt by one estimate), so hyperscalers need scale to justify and recoup the investment — hence the push toward large campuses, increasingly sited away from cities. On the “how long can this last” question, she framed the market as being in a “digestion phase,” noting there are real lags between when capex is announced and how it’s deployed.
Q — Bob: How is the Iran conflict — and its effect on inputs like helium — factoring into GPU costs and investment planning?
A — Jennifer: Agreed this kind of geopolitical shock changes the pro forma in real time, which is part of why forecasting this space is difficult. She pointed to Fed Chair Warsh’s comment that the Fed is relying on market participants themselves to help assess how AI-related investment is flowing, since the data isn’t available in real time. She’s been tracking some of this through Fed district data through the end of August, which shows continued spread of growth through the economy.
Q — C. caller: Is China funding opposition to AI/data centers and using bot farms to influence public opinion — a new “space race” for AI dominance?
A — Jennifer: Said this is precisely why she wrote the report — to cut through social-media-driven misinformation. She agreed national security and national competitiveness need to stay top of mind, but argued the right response is to stay clear-headed and keep moving the development forward rather than being paralyzed by misinformation.
Q — J. caller: What about proposals to build data centers in space (e.g., rumored Starlink-related plans)?
A — Jennifer: Personally opposed — space is already cluttered with debris and effectively ungoverned, and she sees off-world data centers as inviting a new kind of race rather than solving anything. She redirected to the terrestrial picture: water use per data center is falling significantly as technology improves, and she expects continued progress toward a cleaner, more reliable grid over time. [New regulations and legislation ahead ill also impact development.]
Q — F. caller: What about offshore/ocean-wave power as a cleaner, water-free alternative to land-based data centers?
A — Jennifer: Called it a complex, separate conversation, but used the question to explain “behind-the-meter” power: hyperscalers increasingly bring their own generation on-site (e.g., natural gas for round-the-clock power, at times paired with solar) because of the interconnection queue bottleneck. There’s no single model — the mix depends on energy source, location, and the specific project, making it “a multivariate equation.”
Q — G. caller: Could small/miniature nuclear reactors (like those used in submarines) power data centers? And are the resulting jobs accessible to local workers, or only to highly specialized talent from places like Silicon Valley?
A — Jennifer: Small modular reactors and micro-reactors are real, funded projects, but still years away from broad deployment. For now, the industry has to work with currently available power sources. On jobs, she pointed to Microsoft’s public commitments to local workforce training, saying that pattern of local hiring and training is showing up increasingly across development locations.
Q — Bob (closing): Where can people go to learn more and do their own homework on this topic?
A — Jennifer: Conceptelemental.com and Substack, “More Than Elemental.” Cited were two features available: The AI Wild Ride (2025) and The New Social Network (January 2026), plus her broader energy-focused work.