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AK Alex Kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz Independent journalist covering the technology industry and its effect on society, with a focus on large tech companies and artificial intelligence.

“I think the AI industry should turn the middle of these data centers into spas and have all the heat that the chips generate used to power hot tubs, steam rooms, saunas, and maybe a cold plunge. If I'm OpenAI and I say, 'listen up, Ohio, I'm bringing a data center to your community, it's going to be somewhat ugly, but I'm giving anybody within a 25-mile radius access to ChatGPT Spa,' then I think that will improve the popularity.”

Big Technology · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · November 2026

“I think the AI industry should turn the middle of these data centers into spas and have all the heat that the chips generate used to power hot tubs, steam rooms, saunas, and maybe a cold plunge. If I'm OpenAI and I say, 'listen up, Ohio, I'm bringing a data center to your community, it's going to be somewhat ugly, but I'm giving anybody within a 25-mile radius access to ChatGPT Spa,' then I think that will improve the popularity.” — Alex Kantrowitz, Big Technology

Context

Alex and Ranjan had just agreed that data centers are ugly and unpopular after the midterm backlash. Alex offered a half-joking fix: use the chips' waste heat for community wellness facilities.

Transcript

Big Technology Around 38:35 into the episode
Alex Kantrowitz

Anyone with a stake in data centers being AI data centers being built? How about that? Okay. So I would include the Neo Clouds, but we know who really is, you know, who drives the narrative here. It's the OpenAI is the Anthropics. It's Jensen. It's Mark Zuckerberg. I

Ranjan Roy

…anyone thought over the last couple of years. I don't think you're just going to walk back from that that easily. Do you think the suddenly friendly Sam touring America going to farms and stuff like that and doing one of those tours they used to do back in the 90s? Do you think he might do that?

Alex Kantrowitz

It's hard. I mean, because data centers are ugly. Ultimately, right? You could put a mural on them. They don't grace the landscape the same way farmland does. So it's going to be tough.

Ranjan Roy

Wait, did you hear there's, I think it was in France somewhere, like a beautiful data center that they tried building and like tried to like, and there's still a lot of community backlash on it.

Alex Kantrowitz

You know, it's happened in different places. I think, okay, you know, speaking of manifesting, I think the AI industry should follow this hot take that I've had for a while and doesn't seem to be picking up any steam. No pun intended, because what I'm about to say involves that. I think that the AI…

Ranjan Roy

All right. So one thing I will note: this French data center, I just looked it up. It was TVPN had shared it, but it was a prank and not real. So we'll already retract that one about anything in France and beautiful data centers. But in terms of Alex's beautiful data centers spa combination, it is…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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