04.05
The Machines Behind the Models
Every frontier model query draws on a grid where natural gas is now the marginal generator, and roughly a third of proposed US data center capacity is being designed to bypass that grid entirely. The reasons are physical, not philosophical. Heavy-duty gas turbine slots from the major OEMs are filling out toward the end of the decade, federal permitting reform is stuck in the Senate, and the Hormuz crisis has put a hard premium on dispatchable, domestically-fueled power. The result is that AI infrastructure is no longer just a chip and data center story. It is a power generation story, and the people who build the machines have suddenly become the people who decide how fast AI can scale.