If people do not want data centres, efficiency is the product

A Washington Post–ABC News–Ipsos poll published this week found that large majorities of Americans oppose building new data centres, and that many worry AI will destroy jobs. Anyone building in AI should read that as a constraint, not a public-relations problem.

The industry's default answer to demand has been more buildings, more chips and more power. That answer now runs into the communities that have to live next to the substations. The companies that do well from here will be the ones that get more useful work out of every unit of compute they already have.

That is how we try to run ELP GPT. Each request goes to the smallest model tier that can answer it well, live search switches on only when a question needs it, and we track cost per answer alongside quality. Our proposed Ontario infrastructure initiative is planned against demand we can already see, and remains subject to financing, planning and approvals.

On jobs, the poll is a warning to take seriously. The honest case for AI at work is fewer hours on routine tasks and more on judgement, measured in the customer's own numbers. Where we cannot show that, people are right to be sceptical.

— Edgar Melo Costa, founder

Founder’s notes are opinion. They are not investment, legal or professional advice.