GIGAWATTS

Read Gigawatts

Front matter

  1. PrefaceA Note Before We Begin3 min
  2. IntroductionThe Buildings Nobody Sees13 min

The story: nine chapters

Build

  1. Chapter IThe Glass House31 min
  2. Chapter IIWhere the Networks Meet27 min

Boom

  1. Chapter IIIThe Hosting Gold Rush36 min

Bust

  1. Chapter IVEmpty Floors19 min

Rebirth

  1. Chapter VThe Phoenix36 min
  2. Chapter VIThe Cloud Eats the Building37 min
  3. Chapter VIIThe Reconsolidation39 min

The Second Boom

  1. Chapter VIIIThe AI Gold Rush66 min

Looking Ahead

  1. Chapter IXBefore Midnight16 min

Back matter

  1. Appendix AA Timeline of the Data Center9 min
  2. Appendix BThe Deals11 min
  3. Appendix CPeak and Trough5 min
  4. Appendix DAn Owner's Manual for the Next Cycle4 min
  5. Glossary7 min
  6. Cast of Characters7 min
  7. Sources46 min
  8. Acknowledgements2 min
  9. AfterwordHow This Book Was Made4 min

Other ways in

The whole book on one pageIndex of namesSearch

The load: nine chapters, drawn to length

Each strand is as long as its chapter: 73,082 words of story from the IBM glass house to the AI gold rush.

  1. Build

    1. Chapter I: The Glass House7,371 words31 minOn April 7, 1964, a special train pulled out of Grand Central Terminal carrying several hundred writers up the Hudson to Poughkeepsie.Read
    2. Chapter II: Where the Networks Meet6,469 words27 minAt 8100 Boone Boulevard in Tysons Corner, Virginia, sits a small data center, across the street from AT&T Government Solutions.Read

  2. Boom

    1. Chapter III: The Hosting Gold Rush8,504 words36 minIn the summer of 2000, the hottest real estate around New York City was the real estate nobody had wanted a few years earlier.Read

  3. Bust

    1. Chapter IV: Empty Floors4,522 words19 minOn March 5, 2001, the Wall Street Journal marked an anniversary nobody wanted to celebrate.Read

  4. Rebirth

    1. Chapter V: The Phoenix8,499 words36 minI opened the Phoenix chapter of Bandwidth with the same six words.Read
    2. Chapter VI: The Cloud Eats the Building8,917 words37 minAt 2 a.m. on August 24, 2006, Amazon opened a test of something it called the Elastic Compute Cloud.Read
    3. Chapter VII: The Reconsolidation9,346 words39 minOn the morning of Monday, November 15, 2021, two press releases crossed the wire within hours of each other.Read

  5. The Second Boom

    1. Chapter VIII: The AI Gold Rush15,634 words66 minIn June 2024, Elon Musk's artificial-intelligence company, xAI, chose an empty building in South Memphis, Tennessee.Read

  6. Looking Ahead

    1. Chapter IX: Before Midnight3,820 words16 minTwo companies in this book were founded in Silicon Valley in the 1990s to house the Internet's computers.Read