Source: Matthew Yglesias
Despite data centers becoming critical infrastructure for AI training and cloud computing, minimal public data exists on construction rates, energy consumption, or geographic distribution. This gap makes it nearly impossible to assess whether capacity is keeping pace with demand or if an infrastructure crunch looms. The opacity benefits incumbent cloud providers like AWS and Microsoft, who control supply while competing openly on price, leaving policymakers, investors, and competitors to make decisions on incomplete information. Transparent metrics on data center deployment have become a structural problem for the connected economy, not merely an analytical gap.