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When we upload photos, stream movies and search Google, we often don't think about the consequences. "The cloud" has made the internet feel weightless but AI is making the physical side of the internet impossible to ignore.

As useful as it may be, AI does not just run on software. It runs on land, chips, power plants, cooling systems, transmission lines and data centers so massive they could be the size of 2,000 Walmarts . That's why some communities are now pushing back before these data centers are even built.

That may help explain why one of the strangest-sounding ideas in tech suddenly feel a lot less absurd.…