What artificial intelligence needs now is more power.
Not just faster chips, but plentiful, affordable and reliable energy to fuel the city-size data centers driving AI’s growth. Obtaining that power requires new thinking and advances in how we produce, store and deliver energy. In a word, it requires an energy revolution.
But neither the clenched-fist slogans of “Divest Now from Fossil Fuels” nor “Drill, Baby, Drill” will do for the coming revolution. A more fitting call to arms is “Innovate, Baby, Innovate!”
And the epicenter of this revolution will not be Silicon Valley. The next leap in technology is happening where energy and innovation intersect – in America’s heartland and within the research universities located there.
Consider the evidence: Meta is investing $10 billion in a new AI data center in rural north Louisiana. Vantage Data Centers just announced a $25 billion, 1.4-gigawatt AI campus in Texas, the largest of its kind. These choices weren’t accidents. They reflect the realities of power, land and proximity to skilled workforce – conditions Silicon Valley cannot easily provide.
The same shift is visible in the sources of emerging energy technology itself. Look to the universities closest to the action. Notre Dame is shaping the nation’s sustainability agenda from the Midwest. In the South, Georgia Tech is driving breakthroughs in energy innovation. Rice is marrying research with Houston’s energy ecosystem, and Tulane is preparing the next generation of industry, policy and manufacturing leaders. These institutions are developing the discoveries that will power AI, electrify transportation and modernize the grid. They are the real-world laboratories of the future—multidisciplinary, rooted in local economies, yet global in their impact.
But here’s the catch: just as these institutions are poised to lead, federal research funding is decreasing. Achieving a new energy paradigm is perhaps the most exciting, and necessary, of all emerging technological advancements within the grasp of America’s universities. But to reach our goals, the nation’s institutions of higher learning and pioneering research must be supported in their quest.
If we abandon America’s research engine now, we don’t just risk losing the energy race – we risk ceding the AI revolution itself.
What’s needed is clear: sustained federal investment in university-led, use-inspired research and development, thriving university-industry partnerships and policies that align innovation with America’s long-term energy needs.
Universities have given us everything from the polio vaccine to mainframe computers. With the right support, they can deliver the energy systems necessary to power AI, unlock the next wave of innovation and secure U.S. competitiveness worldwide.
The future of technology will be written not in Silicon Valley boardrooms but in research labs in Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, South Bend and beyond. America can still lead the world into the next revolution – but only if we have the foresight to fuel it.