Altman’s AI power grab is tone deaf and infeasible

Sam Altman. (Image: Getty)

Sat, 04 Oct 2025

By Liam DenningSam Altman may be a visionary, but he could use some help reading the room.The OpenAI chief executive officer has made yet more headlines for reportedly telling employees that he targets 250 gigawatts of datacentre capacity by 2033. In power terms, that is like building a not-small country, equivalent to roughly one-third of peak demand on the entire US grid. This is the same US grid already morphing into a political third rail amid fast-rising bills and warnings of blackouts, with proliferating datacenters linked to both.A...

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