Will AI Revolutionize Clean Energy or Destroy a Functioning Climate Ecosystem? [Video]

The vacant buildings and abandoned works of the old steel mill in Midland, Pennsylvania, speak to the Ohio Valley town’s industrial past. Crucible Steel employed thousands here for nearly a century, driving the local economy before it shuttered in the industry’s downturn decades ago, leaving yet another rust belt artifact behind. But Mawson Infrastructure Group CEO Rahul Mewawalla sees something else in the industrial waste: energy for a data center to make this small town just east of the Ohio state line part of the AI revolution.

“The underlying bones of the power infrastructure are there,” Mewawalla told Newsweek. Old industrial sites like the Midland steelworks used massive amounts of electricity, and the high-power connections were still in place when the mill closed.

Mawson now has some 60 modular tractor-trailer-sized data center units humming away on 8 acres of the former Crucible Steel site, crunching zeroes and ones for digital …