A regrettable thing, but it also proves that domestic infrastructure is indeed very excellent. In fact, what is regrettable is not the electricity; the power system is not lacking. In some areas, the cost of electricity is close to zero, and even local residents can sell to the national grid for a small profit.
What is truly regrettable is the opportunity for industrial integration, the development and utilization of the computing power + electricity supporting industries. With the disappearance of mining, the originally established hardware industry ecosystem—chips, mining machines, power grid management technologies, cooling systems, computing power scheduling software, ASIC design—also shrank. These technologies can actually be migrated to AI training hardware, applied to supercomputing centers, applied to data center cooling, and applied to large-scale distributed computing, leading to a trillion-level industrial chain spillover and talent loss.
In contrast, the United States has one point worth learning for countries globally: state-level trial and error, writing innovation into law, and allowing capital to make mistakes in a institutionalized manner. The U.S. government, foundations, and industrial capital support cutting-edge technologies in the model of national venture capital, with a scale and inclusiveness unprecedented in human history.
During World War I and II, the United States' technological strength was not outstanding, to the extent that the top conglomerates even bet on European politics. However, the U.S. quickly absorbed the world's top talents during and after the wars, including military and scientific personnel from defeated countries, ultimately laying the foundation for its technological hegemony.
There are two typical examples of talent absorption, both from the German talent system. During the war, it absorbed Einstein's team and over 1,000 top scientists associated with him. This team made crucial contributions to the development of the atomic bomb. After the war, it absorbed German aerospace expert Wernher von Braun and his team. This group of war criminals established the United States' dominance in aerospace and military technology, and of course, a large number of Japanese war criminals were also absorbed.
On the contrary, the Soviet Union is quite ridiculous; it paid an exorbitant price to defeat Germany, a cost unprecedented in human history, establishing various forced labor camps.
The United States has long relied on institutionalized innovation incentives and global talent absorption to solidify its long-term advantages in technology, military, and politics.
