Hakeem Anwar joins Jimmy to warn that 384 hyperscale AI data centers already consume about 10% of US power demand, with 300 more planned that will quadruple AI power use to 40% of the nation's supply, while these centers require enormous amounts of water for cooling—spraying water on chips that get as hot as the surface of the sun—with Google's transparency report admitting water withdrawal is based on "estimates" when metering is unavailable. He notes that a single Kevin O'Leary data center (9 gigawatts) uses more power than the combined global footprint of Google and Microsoft pre-AI, and that these centers cause severe water stress, while companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple account for 41% of data center growth.
Anwar argues that the solution is personal choice: ditch big tech devices and replace them with privacy-first alternatives like the Above phone, which has no ads, no tracking, no AI that can't be turned off, and uses open-source software that is self-hostable and not dependent on third-party companies. He acknowledges the risk of being jailed—pointing to crypto pioneers who were put in house arrest while the establishment later embraced crypto—but says he trusts in God and is "doing what I'm called" to do.
