Data centers are intelligence factories; agent requests burn 15x the tokens
NinaDSchick · x · 2026-08-28
Nina Schick argues we are turning energy into non-biological intelligence: data centers are literally factories that produce intelligence, with electricity as the essential input. Citing OpenRouter estimates, an agentic request already consumes around 15x as many tokens as a human-led request on the platform; more capable, autonomous systems burn vastly more tokens, driving ever-greater compute and electricity demand.
She argues past energy forecasts failed because no one foresaw that intelligence could be produced industrially. If more computation yields more valuable work, we will keep finding more work for machines — so electricity demand has no obvious ceiling and requires an entirely new energy paradigm.
Related event: Data Centers Are "Intelligence Factories," Analyst Says(2 posts)→
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