AI
What AI costs, who pays for it, and how its growth moves prices elsewhere.
The AI Power Paradox: Each AI Task Uses Far Less Energy, Yet Data Center Power Is Set to Double
The IEA says the energy needed for one AI task has fallen at least tenfold a year. It also forecasts that data center electricity will nearly double from 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030. Both are true, because volume and the amount of work behind each request are growing faster than efficiency.
AI's Next Bottleneck Is Glass: A 180 Million Fiber-Kilometer Shortfall
TrendForce expects the world to need 577 million fiber-kilometers of optical fiber in 2026 and come up 180 million short, about 31% of demand. Factories are nearly full, inventories have shrunk to a month, and new capacity takes up to two years. When volume cannot grow, price does the work.
Anthropic's Revenue Grew 14×. Its Compute Bill Grew 3.8×. Did AI Get Cheaper to Serve?
Anthropic's IPO filing shows revenue rising far faster than spending on computing power. In the first half of 2026, each dollar of revenue needed 55 cents of compute, down from $2.01 a year earlier. The improvement is large and real, but it is not the same as a profitable AI business.
AI Got 80% Cheaper. Why Does Everything AI Touches Cost More?
The price of AI per token keeps falling, yet AI's growth is pushing up the price of phones, PCs, memory and electricity. The data shows both are true at once, and explains why.