Sam Altman Wants 250 Gigawatts of Power. Is That Possible?

Welcome to the first edition of The Information’s newsletter on AI infrastructure. In the coming months, we’ll cover the data centers, chips, networking and energy that power AI.

Artificial intelligence is hungry for power at a scale that defies belief.

Last week, OpenAI and Nvidia said they would work together to develop 10 gigawatts of data center capacity over an unspecified period. Inside OpenAI, Sam Altman floated an even more staggering number: 250 GW of compute in total by 2033, roughly one-third of the peak power consumption in the entire U.S.!