Matteo Wong is a staff writer at The Atlantic who reports on AI infrastructure, climate impacts, and data-center politics.
Background and reporting
Wong's March 2026 magazine feature, "Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers" (Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers — Matteo Wong (The Atlantic, April 2026)), reports from Memphis (the xAI Colossus site) and Loudoun County, Virginia (data-center alley), with reference cases in Indiana, Louisiana, and Texas. The piece supplies quantitative claims about data-center energy and water scale: Colossus drawing electricity comparable to 200,000 homes; more than $600 billion in hyperscaler capital expenditure following the release of ChatGPT; an International Energy Agency projection that US data centers consume more electricity than all US heavy industry by 2030; and a Dominion Energy forecast of 5.5% annual demand growth.
Wong's reporting documents how the costs of AI infrastructure fall on rural and predominantly Black communities, ratepayers, and local jurisdictions that did not consent to host the build-out, connecting the scale figures at AI Data Centers and AI Environmental Impact to the dynamics at AI-Driven Political Violence.
Relationships
- supports: AI Data Centers — primary numerical anchor
- supports: AI Environmental Impact
- supports: Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics
- related: Lila Shroff — Atlantic colleague; complementary work on backlash dynamics