David Meyer

The data center backlash is not really about resources. It is about fear of AI and fear of the unknown. I spent four days in rural Colorado shadowing a data center startup's 'listening tour.' This story is about what ordinary Americans think about AI and their desire to have a stake in the boom. David Meyer (@thedmeyer) is the founder of (@DeployStrata), which is trying to build a tiny 12-shipping container data center on a sand lot in the middle of nowhere. During a community meeting, he answered every practical question: Noise, water, power, cleanup. It didn't move the skeptics: — “I’m willing to bet 90% of this group will raise their hands saying innately I’m against AI and I’m scared to death of AI. I don’t think any of us in this room have any clue how bad this could go.” — Trump "wants to use China as the blueprint. Have we ever asked the Chinese what life is like over there? Digital ID. It sucks.” — “Our collective concerns regarding AI, data centers and Flock cameras come down to one primary concern. I address these concerns in one statement: WE DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN A SURVEILLANCE STATE!!!” — “What do we need it for? That’s the big question.” And above all else: what's in it for the community? To be clear, the resources do matter. But they are often a front for these larger fears over technology, which this specific project exposes by solving all of the resource concerns. My full dispatch in @PirateWires (with photography by yours truly):

JUST IN: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang declares data centers are now called “superintelligence factories.”

DATA AFTER DARK: A PRO DATA CENTER PARTY is tonight! Get ready—two bars, basement speakeasy with a jazz band, whiskey lounge, AI photo booth, and more. Presented by @PirateWires @JoinYoungVoices @ComputeOptimist, sponsored by @imjaredz @statecraft_labs @deploystrata @ManhattanInst @NetChoice, Right to Compute, @bitcoinpolicy @76CrewHQ. Thank you all for helping take this idea from a house party to a full-blown celebration of American AI dominance!

I’m sorry but America did not spend 250 years turning “what’s over there?” into the most powerful civilization on earth just to finally arrive at the most consequential technological frontier in generations and decide actually we’re scared of frontiers now. We ARE the fucking frontier. We cross oceans. We build railroads across continents. We split atoms. We put men on the moon. We turn sand into computers and computers into a global nervous system. Of COURSE AI is terrifying. The frontier is SUPPOSED to scare the shit out of you. That’s how you know you have, in fact, located the fucking frontier. The answer is not recklessness, but it sure as fuck isn’t paralysis either. America’s comparative advantage is an unusually high national tolerance for ambitious weirdos staring at impossible things and saying “Yeah... I think I can build it.” That trait is rarer than oil, harder to manufacture than semiconductors, and responsible for a frankly preposterous amount of the modern world. And you absolutely will not fucking regulate it out of us.

We are excited to announce that the building of Zone 1 has been approved! alamosacitizen.com/alamosa-c…

I run data centers for a living and I live in Chicago, where there are over 200 of them. I've never once heard a neighbor complain about a building they can't see, can't hear, and don't pay for. The fear only shows up where the building hasn't gone up yet.