Power Play

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Sep 2026

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AI needs more power, faster than America has ever built it. Power Play is a six-part investigation from Quartz into the bottlenecks, the fixes, and the economics at the core of AI development. Hosted by Marco Pimentel. Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab-Muguira, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig. New episodes releasing weekly from September 15.

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September 29, 202632 min

Solutions

The cheapest fix for AI's power problem is America’s power grid. That is, the one that already exists. A Brattle study puts the savings from running it ten percent harder at more than $100 billion. The fixes chasing that number run from dynamic line ratings to a five gigawatt-hour heat battery in South Dakota. Jackie Snow and six grid experts explain what keeps us from tapping into these solutions. CREDITS:  Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie.  Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.  Hosted by Marco Pimentel.  Produced by Simon Litt.  Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.

September 22, 202630 min

Balance

Residents of Scioto County, Ohio, learned about their new $1 billion Google data center after the deal was done. The county gave up 75 percent of the property tax on it for 15 years. Historian John Reeves compares what’s happening today with what happened the last time America built at speed. Catherine Baab-Muguira investigates the pledge signed by tech CEOs, which claims AI won't raise anyone's electricity bill. CREDITS:  Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie.  Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.  Hosted by Marco Pimentel.  Produced by Simon Litt.  Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.

September 15, 202631 min

Gridlock

America's grid runs at about half its capacity. AI needs more power. What’s the problem? Every new data center waits on a connection study, and the studies are still run by hand. The turbines and transmission lines that would add capacity take five years or more to arrive. Jackie Snow traces the wait through roughly three thousand utilities, each working the problem alone. CREDITS:  Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie.  Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.  Hosted by Marco Pimentel.  Produced by Simon Litt.  Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.

September 15, 202637 min

AI wants your electricity

America is rebuilding its power grid for AI before anyone can agree on how much power AI will need. In Ohio, one utility held 30 gigawatts of data center requests. When it asked developers for money upfront, requests dropped to 13 gigawatts. Jackie Snow follows the phantom demand clogging utility queues, the decisions already being made on numbers nobody trusts, and who pays if the guesses run high. CREDITS:  Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie.  Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.  Hosted by Marco Pimentel.  Produced by Simon Litt.  Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.

September 9, 20263 min

Introducing Power Play

AI needs more power, faster than America has ever built it. Power Play is a six-part investigation from Quartz into the bottlenecks, the fixes, and the economics at the core of AI development. Episodes 1 and 2 arrive September 15, then weekly through October 13.

July 23, 202441 min

Sleep: The dreamiest new industry

There’s a lot of money to be made in the business of sleep. Take sunrise alarm clocks, fancy mattresses, REM-tracking wearables, and monthly deliveries of melatonin. But should we really be investing this much in hopes of catching a few more Z’s? In the final episode of season 8, we consult a bonafide sleep doctor on the matter and get a physician’s POV on a few questions keeping us up at night: Why is there such a large market for catching some Z’s? Can any of these products actually help us find rest? Why do we need to sleep? What’s happening in our brains and bodies while we dream? The Quartz Obsession is produced by Podcast Fast Track, with additional support from Jason Russum, Amy Perry, Liliana Zapata, Juan Palacios, and Lorena Caro. Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira. This episode was recorded at G/O Media headquarters in New York.

July 16, 202430 min

Strollers: Pushing the limits of childrearing cache

There are contactless thermometers, the Nose Frieda, co-sleeping. Trends in parenting gear and childrearing practices seem to evolve at faster rates than other sectors, a speed exemplified by a single product: strollers. While we’ve been engineering ways to wheel children around for centuries, stroller manufacturers can’t seem to stop iterating on their models. Strollers have become a status identifier, a repository for parenting anxiety, and an emblem of consumerism run amok. As doctors and experts gather new research and best practices in childcare, strollers exemplify how quickly it’s all changing. Strap into episode 5 and get the latest about this new movement in industrial design. The Quartz Obsession is produced by Podcast Fast Track, with additional support from Jason Russum, Amy Perry, Liliana Zapata, Juan Palacios, and Lorena Caro. Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira. This episode was recorded at G/O Media headquarters in New York.

July 9, 202438 min

Airline credit cards: the high-flying loyalty game

From Dubai to Dublin to Dallas and back, air carriers are cashing in on a big business: credit cards. In fact, analysts note that growth in the sector “significantly outpaces the overall credit card industry.” One carrier alone can profit billions from its cards in a calendar year and, in tandem, build loyalty by tying them up in frequent flier programs. Why did airlines build out a business line through these little scraps of plastic? What’s the history of these co-branded cards? How did credit rewards come to make sky-high profits? Fasten your seatbelts and put away your tray tables as the fourth episode of season 8 takes off, with a co-pilot who’s made a business of this business: The Points Guy himself.

July 2, 202430 min

F1: The global race to the future

As the highest class of international racing for open-wheel, single-seater cars, F1 is worth more than $18B and stands to accelerate even more as a bonafide entertainment business as the Euro-born sport becomes more popular in China, the United States, and other global heavyweights. But F1 also faces its challenges, from new driving tech to adopt to new electrification pressures to confront. In this episode our Jalopnik colleague Ryan King guest-stars to navigate a few high-speed laps around the past, present, and future of Formula One racing. The Quartz Obsession is produced by Podcast Fast Track, with additional support from Jason Russum, Amy Perry, Liliana Zapata, Juan Palacios, and Lorena Caro. Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira. This episode was recorded at G/O Media headquarters in New York.

June 25, 202419 min

EV chargers: The geographic forces driving electric vehicle adoption

Powering an electric car or truck is designed for people with private garages or who live in a major city with lots of accessible charging stations. Rural and suburban apartment-dwellers can’t just run cords out their three-story windows to juice up their rides through a 140-volt outlet. That would take days. If we want any shot at transitioning to greener vehicles, how can we turbo-charge access to EVs for everyone? Get all the answers in our second episode of season 8. The Quartz Obsession is produced by Podcast Fast Track, with additional support from Jason Russum, Amy Perry, Liliana Zapata, Juan Palacios, and Lorena Caro. Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira. This episode was recorded at G/O Media headquarters in New York.