What if the US did a datacenter moratorium? A compute accounting
trevposts · x · 2026-08-21
@trevposts posed a thought experiment: what would a full US datacenter moratorium actually cause? Key uncertainties he lists:
- China's chip access: it cuts both the production of chips and the demand for the chips they smuggle — which effect dominates?
- US AI capability slowdown: e.g., how far does it push out the first 10^30 effective-FLOP training run?
- It reduces compute supply, but adds even stronger incentive for compute-efficient training, accelerating efficiency innovations.
Related event: Thought Experiment: What If the US Paused Data Center Construction?(3 posts)→
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