The Data Center Next Door (How Big Tech and AI Are Shaping Our Energy Future)

The essential guide to data centers and energy—how Big Tech became a new power on a century-old grid and what's at stake for our neighborhoods.

From an internationally recognized legal expert in energy, environmental, and emerging technology law and policy named a “visionary thinker” by Popular Science.

As Big Tech pours billions into AI, it has brought data centers out of obscurity onto the front page. The largest facilities, “hyperscalers,” are staggering in size and built at unprecedented speed. Their insatiable appetite for local resources has made headlines, yet the deeper story remains untold: these new neighbors are quietly reshaping our energy landscape.

In The Data Center Next Door, Amy Stein reveals how the real impact lies not within the facility, but beyond its walls, at the source of its electricity. Whether it comes from gas, nuclear, wind, solar, or other energy sources, this choice shapes electricity bills, water supplies, air quality, climate, and the resilience of the grid. Equally important, as we enter the era she calls the Tech Energy Transition, Big Tech has emerged as a transformative energy player, rewiring relationships among utilities, investors, and regulators, disrupting entrenched power dynamics, and forcing regulators to reevaluate how the grid is governed.

This book offers a clear framework for understanding the stakes, weighing the trade-offs, and anticipating the next wave of data center development. Timely and rigorously researched, it reveals what our digital dependency is costing us, and the opportunities to reinvent an antiquated grid.