Bringing the Power Home: Guyana’s Decisive Moment to Forge the Future of AI and Clean Energy

guyanabusinessjournalApril 19, 2025010 views

Bringing the Power Home: Guyana’s Decisive Moment to Forge the Future of AI and Clean Energy

By

Hon. Kwasi Fraser, Former Mayor of Purcellville, Virginia

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A Fork in the Road:

Frog Nation or Future State?

Walter Rodney reminded us that underdevelopment is not a natural state — it is imposed. In How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, he laid bare the systems that mined the wealth of the periphery to enrich the core. Today, Guyana stands at a similar crossroads. With vast natural gas reserves and strategic geographic positioning, we must choose: follow the well-worn path of extractive dependency, or forge a bold new future rooted in digital sovereignty and climate-smart industrial transformation.

The age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is upon us. But AI’s foundation is not just data — it’s energy, infrastructure, and the courage to lead. Guyana can transform from a resource-exporting nation to a sovereign provider of computing power for the world’s most advanced technologies. The question is not if this can be done. The question is: will we do it, and will we do it on our own terms?

The Power Beneath Our Feet, the Future in Our Hands

The global energy crisis, intensified by the growing demands of AI workloads, is already straining electrical grids in developed nations. In the U.S., 34 new nuclear plants may be needed over the next five years to maintain current capacity. Primary data center markets are at maximum capacity. Delays and denials are the norm.

Meanwhile, Guyana sits atop 17 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas — an untapped resource of generational significance. Rather than exporting raw gas, we can channel it toward energy-resilient, low-emission, domestically powered AI and high-performance computing (HPC) data centers.

With such an approach, Guyana could:

Build a sovereign data infrastructure
Attract billions in investment
Create sustainable public revenue for education, healthcare, and transport
Position itself as a bridge to a future powered by clean hydrogen and renewables

This is not merely an economic plan. It is a decolonial strategy for technological self-determination.

A Sovereign Digital Vision for the Wales Industrial Zone

At the Wales Industrial Site, an unprecedented opportunity awaits. Over 1,300 acres have been designated for energy and industrial development, adjacent to power infrastructure, gas pipelines, and deep-sea cable landing points. This site is perfectly positioned to become the beating heart of Guyana’s digital economy.

Picture a 1-gigawatt AI data center campus using immersion cooling, modular buildouts, and natural gas microgrids. This isn’t science fiction — it’s entirely feasible, environmentally advanced, and economically sound.

Key performance benefits include:

50–130 MMcf of natural gas from domestic fields
84% reduction in energy consumption vs. legacy data centers
95% reduction in cooling costs and 98% less water use
PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1.03 — among the best in the world

The Wales site could become a launchpad for the Caribbean’s AI future.

Diaspora as Vanguard: Calling Guyanese Home to Build the Digital Nation

We must also recognize a powerful and underleveraged asset: the Guyanese diaspora. Across the globe, our brothers and sisters work as engineers, IT professionals, architects, data scientists, and planners. They hold the knowledge and experience to help make this vision a reality.

So we issue this call:

To the Guyanese diaspora in data center planning, energy systems, and AI infrastructure — come home. Help build the future. Help reclaim our right to define our economy on our terms.

This is not sentiment. It is strategy. The Caribbean cannot afford to outsource the foundation of its digital future. We must own the value chain — from hardware to software, from design to governance.

To this end, Guyana should establish:

A Diaspora Technology Corps, modeled on national service but aimed at digital infrastructure
Investment incentives and fast-track repatriation for returning professionals
Joint ventures with diaspora-led firms and academic institutions to build capacity and transfer knowledge
National fellowships to pair diaspora experts with young Guyanese talent in engineering, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and STEM fields

Walter Rodney was a global scholar, but always a servant of his people. Let us harness the brilliance of Guyanese minds everywhere to build a digitally sovereign nation.

Not Just Data — Destiny

This is more than a conversation about bandwidth. It is a battle for the bandwidth of destiny. Data centers are not inert machines; they are the economic, geopolitical, and technological infrastructure of the next era.

The economic case is clear:

A single hyperscale data center can inject over $3 billion in CAPEX over a decade
Job creation carries a 7.4x multiplier per direct hire
Property tax revenue from data centers outpaces the most productive agricultural land by 100x

The moral case is even stronger:

Transition from a site of extraction to a site of innovation
Empower youth, deepen STEM education, and connect Guyana to global research networks
Define clean energy on our terms — beginning with natural gas microgrids and evolving toward green hydrogen and renewables

A Digital Path to Decolonization

For generations, Guyana has exported its riches — sugar, bauxite, gold, and now oil — while capturing only a fraction of their value. That model must end.

By building sovereign, sustainable, AI-ready infrastructure, rooted in our own energy, land, and people, we do more than enter the digital economy — we reshape it.

We call on:

Policymakers and educators
Energy stakeholders and civil society
Diaspora professionals and private investors

To unite under this vision:

✅ Embrace data centers as engines of national transformation

✅ Create public-private frameworks that uplift our people

✅ Embed equity, sustainability, and education into every project

✅ Declare science and technology central pillars of development

✅ Empower Guyanese everywhere to lead

This is Guyana’s moment. The choice is ours:

Leap boldly into the future — or be left behind.

Let us rise.

Let us compute.

Let us lead.

Kwasi Fraser

President, Guyana Infrastructure Consortium

Former Mayor, Purcellville, Virginia

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