Power Grids Bent Beneath Machine Ambition

Malcolm Pierce

• 05 juni 2026
• 9783565479276

Samenvatting:

Artificial intelligence depends on far more than algorithms. Behind every breakthrough model stand enormous physical systems consuming electricity, rare materials, industrial cooling, and strategic semiconductor supplies. The modern AI race is therefore also a struggle over territory, infrastructure, and energy capacity. This account explores the geopolitical foundations of the global artificial intelligence industry. Semiconductor manufacturing became concentrated within a fragile international supply chain vulnerable to political conflict and economic disruption. Governments and corporations competed for access to advanced chips, while massive data centers reshaped regional energy consumption and environmental planning. AI development increasingly relied on infrastructure available only to the wealthiest states and firms. The book also examines how infrastructure concentration reinforced corporate dominance. Control over cloud computing networks and electricity-intensive processing facilities created barriers few competitors could overcome. As demand for machine learning expanded, energy systems and digital sovereignty became inseparable political questions. Artificial intelligence emerges here not as an invisible software revolution, but as an industrial transformation rooted in factories, cables, cooling systems, and geopolitical dependence.