The Compute Crunch

Inside the Power-Hungry Datacenter Race to Control AI — And Everything Else

By: Marshawn Goldstein

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

AI isn’t magic. It’s concrete, steel, and megawatts—hidden inside windowless warehouses most people will never see. While the world obsesses over chatbots and robot overlords, a far quieter revolution is unfolding: a ruthless scramble to build, power, and control the datacenters that make all of this possible. That race, not the latest AI demo, is what will decide who holds real power in the 21st century.

“The Compute Crunch” rips the lid off the physical underbelly of AI: the land grabs in forgotten towns, the deals for cheap power and water, the strained grids, and the handful of tech giants quietly locking up the compute everyone else will depend on. As governments, corporations, and billionaires pour trillions into infrastructure the public barely understands, we are drifting toward a future where access to raw computing power—not laws, not votes—determines who gets to build, deploy, or resist AI.

This book is for readers who don’t buy the utopian sales pitch. You’ll see how datacenters turn local communities into sacrifice zones, how regulators are being outpaced and outmaneuvered, and how “the cloud” became the perfect cover story for a new kind of oligarchy. If you want to understand who will actually control AI—and what that means for democracy, work, privacy, and your city’s next utility bill—this is the place to start.