There is a widely-held perception that data centers ⁠— the giant facilities that hold networks of society’s supercomputers ⁠— are an out-of-control energy suck. It’s actually not true, says our guest. These myths are rooted in bad projections and false statements from coal advocates, dating all the way back to the 1990s. Yes, data centers collectively use a lot of energy. But they’re becoming hyperefficient. They’re a magnet for renewables development. And they’re helping us unlock the powerful software, algorithms and heavy computational tasks that run the clean energy economy. Our guest has been researching data centers for decades.