Who Pays for AI's Power Rush?

HotTea: The AI Morning Briefing · Aug 21, 2026 · 7m · transcript

The last day made AI scale look less like a pure model race and more like a test of who pays for infrastructure, who accepts automation risk, and who can prove control without hiding the cost. 7 evidence-backed stories. AI-generated narration. Complete briefing and source links: https://hottea.ai/archive/2026-08-21?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=daily_briefing Sections 00:00 What we're covering today 00:19 1. AI data centers became a live election issue as ratepayer and water fights spread 01:22 2. OpenAI launched AI Futures after previewing a ZDR-compatible safety…