Data centers are the digital steel of the AI century. America can't stop building them.
An aerial view of the construction of a new Amazon Web Services data center on August 26, 2026 in Sterling, Virginia. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
ByTom Suder,
GMarkU Professor/CEO Advanced Technology Academic Research Center
November 2, 2026 05:14 PM ET
COMMENTARY | In defense of the industry that will power America's next century.
I grew up in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, a steel town that knows what losing an industry costs. When the mill closed, the jobs and the tax base went with it. Families watched storefronts empty and kids move away. Data centers sound far from the kitchen table. They are not. They are where artificial intelligence lives, and every advance below runs on one.
Start with science. The Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, launched in November 2025, connects DOE's 17 national laboratories and their supercomputers into one AI discovery platform, aiming to double the productivity of American...
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