Bryan Loewen

Some history on the secrecy of data centers and the change needed linkedin.com/posts/chris-cro…

AI is the greatest enabling technology since electricity — and we’re at a fork in the road that will decide which nations become the haves… and which become the have-nots. The other day, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act — a nationwide pause on new AI data centers until “strong national safeguards” are in place for energy, jobs, and the environment. History shows exactly where this path leads. In the 1880s, the British Empire embraced electricity with forward-looking legislation (the Electric Lighting Acts of 1882 and 1888). Parliament cleared the way for private companies and cities to build power stations and grids. Result? Factories ran longer, cities modernized, productivity soared, and Britain extended its industrial dominance into the electrical age. Contrast that with the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Abdülhamid II. Terrified of “the scorpion” of electricity, he banned public use, restricted it to his palace, and delayed urban electrification until 1914 — decades too late. The empire fell further behind, became the “sick man of Europe,” and paid a steep economic price for generations. Today, AI data centers are the new power plants. They are the infrastructure that will fuel the next industrial revolution. A blanket moratorium isn’t caution — it’s choosing the Ottoman path. While other nations race to build the energy backbone of the AI economy, hesitation risks turning the U.S. into the technological have-not of the 21st century. Smart guardrails? Absolutely.   But strangling the infrastructure that makes AI possible? That’s not protection — it’s self-sabotage. The nations that embrace AI infrastructure the way Britain embraced electricity will lead the century. The ones that fear it will watch from the sidelines. What path do we choose?