WSJ reported on "phantom" data center construction projects in the USA

American energy companies are recording an unprecedented influx of connection requests from data center developers fueled by the boom in artificial intelligence. This was reported on September 1 by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

According to estimates by American Electric Power and Texas-based Sempra Oncor, projects with a total capacity of almost 400 gigawatts are under approval. This is more than half of the peak consumption of the entire continental United States on hot summer days.

The growth in demand is largely due to the popularity of generative AI: searching using platforms such as ChatGPT consumes 10 times more energy than a regular Google query. However, a significant number of projects are considered "phantom" — they create a burden on network planning, but may not be implemented.

"We know that not all of this will be launched, but even some of it is significant," said Trevor Michalik, AEP's chief financial officer.

Experts warn that excessive investments in new capacities may result in higher tariffs for all consumers, especially if the AI boom turns out to be overestimated.

Deception of vision: fraudsters have learned to give invisible instructions to neural networks

Hidden prompta allow you to manipulate artificial intelligence

Earlier, on August 27, researchers discovered the first known PromptLock ransomware virus based on artificial intelligence. The program is written in the Golang language used in Windows and Linux. The virus has not yet been detected in real attacks, but its discovery indicates the possibility of an increase in the number of ransomware and other cyber threats.

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