There they were. Golden boxes, louder than a toddler on a red-eye, hotter than a campfire in a heat wave, pricier than a private Caribbean island.
Yes, real, working Nvidia GPUs.
I was under strict “look, don’t touch” orders—as if I’d, what, lick the mesh metal enclosure. Just standing there, I could hear and feel the electricity being devoured.
We’ve all heard about AI’s insatiable energy appetite. By 2028, data centers like this one I visited in Ashburn, Va., could consume up to 12% of all U.S. electricity, according to a report from the Energy Department and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
