This is the US military's biggest decommissioned silo complex which once held three nuclear missiles. You got water tanks. You got diesel tanks for example. You can run generators over here. You got nuclear. You can have a nuclear power plant here. Now the space is being renovated to safeguard a new vulnerability.

Data centers that power AI. AI needs safe environments to basically have all their computational processing power. Big companies have already started moving their servers underground into abandoned mines and war bunkers. Going deep could help them solve two problems. Keeping servers cool and secure. There's a lot of nervous individuals out there in the marketplace. The United States against Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea.

But it's not just tech firms that are investing in backup plans. Surveys show that twothirds of Americans believe World War II is looming. And so they're pouring money into high security housing that could even withstand a nuclear war. It's suicidal attacking a fortitude ranch when you've got 100 plus people with weapons behind defensive positions and cleared lines of fire. We visited a $350 million silo near Denver. Trust me, the view is pretty cool up here. And a survival fortress in Texas to see how far people will go to keep us and our data safe if doomsday hits. In a top secret location near Denver,

Colorado, sits this abandoned missile silo. It's 165 ft deep, the size of a 16story building. So, this here was the original entrance. It's almost like a gopher entrance here. That's Nick Hik. He's a Russian trained cosmonaut and a venture capitalist who acquired this bunker from the US government in 2021 and plans to turn it into a storage and data center for AI. He has a whole portfolio of relics he's transformed. I'm immersed in a world of castles, underground bunkers. I am a value facurer, but uh I like things that I can add value to.

This is the front entrance to the underground complex. Are you ready for it? I think so. Would you like to pull on a seven time? You ready for it? Let's try it. Let's do it. All my working out is coming in useful. Okay. All my might. Look at how white. Yeah, exactly. The door weighs as much as a small SUV and can shield from nuclear radiation. So, welcome to the abode. Welcome to the complex.

The facility sprawls across 200,000 square ft and comprises 17 chambers. Originally designed to hide, power, and launch three nuclear weapons. The government took the missiles out in 1965, but kept using the complex for national security research before eventually shutting it down. So, this is a 3,000lb manganese blast door. Push it. Oh, yeah. Look at that. And you can see here there's a another basement level down there. Typically, military wise, they leave a lot of goodies here. For example, lead paint, mercury, cyanide, asbestos.

So, as you venture here, just watch your head on this. Nick is filming the renovation, which will cost about $30 million and then we can start developing and basically um repurposing it. But the space is very unique. This here is the control dome. This is where all the action was. It's where the men who operate the nukes slept and worked around the clock. So the fate of the western world was in the hands of these 21 22 year olds who had the keys to the missiles ready to deploy them on the instructions of the Pentagon by the president. That call would come to a phone once attached to this desk, but it's since been removed.

Fire button over here and you can deploy a 4.5 megaton nuclear missile. Yeah, pretty insane stuff over here. This has all the launch codes, launch times, basically protocol to launching a nuclear missile. So, we're still drawing these off. These were just discovered recently. Yeah, classified materials. Nick wants to turn this area into a museum. And he thinks this area has a more adventurous vibe. So, imagine this as a nightclub and a DJ's here, right? You got a pool here. You got a circus dancers here. You got the bars there. You got consumption lounges in the tunnels. Choose your adventure.

All the rooms are connected by this network of tunnels stretching 4500 ft. We've only traversed 23% of this underground complex and we've been here for a couple of hours. Yeah, I don't think we're going to go see the whole thing. But Nick has explored almost every inch. Put it to the blueprint. should take me to the transfer exchange building. I need to slide down that. Is that strong enough? Okay. I'm going to slide down this. Okay.

Okay. We're officially inside. Other tunnels are more walkable. So that tunnel system over there uh leads to launch area number two and number three and also the air launcher facility over here. So there's another 10 buildings through that tunnel. This one leads to the most secure part of the complex. And if you see the concrete here, there are no cracks. This is like Hoover Dam type engineering. The walls have an inner and outer concrete shell that can withstand about 15,000 lb of pressure per square in and they're reinforced with steel. So, there were three launcher areas.

There were three nukes. Okay, this is launch area number one. I often joke about this. These are like pantry doors to the kitchen. You know what I mean? And behind these doors, the weapon that could wipe out millions of people in just seconds. The solidar doors are up there. They would open up. The missile will be raised to the surface. Here's what this room looked like back when it held a Titan nuclear missile. The US constructed 18 silos just like it during the Cold War.

Another powerful deterrent weapon goes on duty for Uncle Sam. The first squadron of underground Titan intercontinental missiles to become combat ready. stand in firing positions at Lowry Air Force Base near Denver. Each silo took around 3 years and thousands of workers to finish. But by the mid60s, many were already decommissioned because the newer facilities could launch missiles 15 times faster. And in time of a nuclear war, minutes are very, very important. This silo cost $47 million to build in 1959. That's about $350 million today when adjusted for inflation. And Nick acquired it 62 years later for over $10 million. Today, he uses this room to

film videos for his own creative projects. We have a lot of fun in here. You know, this is just ground water. You can swim in this. So, we have America's deepest swimming pool. But seeing a shark fin would be awesome, wouldn't it? But soon the security this space offers could matter again for what it may hold next. A data center. AI needs power. AI needs safe environments to basically have all their computational processing power.

Another room already has the infrastructure to generate the energy to support AI operations without relying on the grid. This now is the power section of the complex. This is the power dome. There's a muddy shot. Yes. So that was a power plane just there. So this was a very noisy rim. So this was the uh air intake. Here four giant diesel engines powered the complex and could keep it running if the grid went down. With the fuel stored here, the engines could generate enough energy to power a couple thousand homes for about 2 weeks or one averagesized

data center. We got the first diesel tank. There's actually three of these. That's the second one. Look how big it is. Although, if you want to scale a reference, do you want to just go next to it for a sec? It's a lot bigger than me. What do you think of this hole? Uh, about 50,000 gallons. But to run AI, he says he'd install small nuclear reactors to avoid being so dependent on refueling. The natural temperature down here is another major reason Nick sees promise. And during the summer time when it's like about, you know, typical Colorado, it's like 95° F in the summertime. But in here, it stays 52° F.

It's a perfect environment all year round. That's a big deal for servers. Keeping them cool can eat up a third of data centers electricity. And demand spikes in the summer when temperatures rise. That's one reason why Nick already has interest from big tech companies and AI conglomerates. He couldn't disclose which ones, but storing data underground is becoming more common all over the world. Like in Sweden, this data center called Pionin sits in a former cold war bunker near Stockholm. It even stores Wikileaks servers. In neighboring Norway, nearly 500 ft inside a mountain. This old gemstone

mine now houses a six-story data center. It lives completely off the grid and uses water from a fjord and glaciers to help stay cool. In the US, the biggest known hub belongs to a company called Iron Mountain. It sits inside an abandoned limestone mine in Pennsylvania. At 220 ft deep, the facility sprawls 40 acres, around 9 times the size of Nick's silo. But that's still tiny. Just a tenth of the size of the data campuses Amazon and Google are building above ground, which stretch across 500 acres. Experts say moving those below is extra challenging.

Even though it's cooler down here, servers would heat the air fast without a large scale ventilation system, which is really expensive. Plus, the wider and deeper you dig, the more you're fighting the land itself, groundwater pressure, leaks, and flooding, driving the price tag further up. But experts say data centers need to find new ways to stay cool, especially as government reports warn that if demand for electricity keeps growing, blackouts could become 100 times more common by 2030. and any long-term power failures could be catastrophic for everyone.

The electric grid is wellnown. It's a disaster waiting to happen. It's the Achilles heel of the United States. People are going to die. Buildings are going to be looted. And if you don't have a lot of guards on duty all the time, you can't survive. That's why it isn't just corporations that are prepping for the worst case scenario, but people, too. Perched on a hill in a secret location in Texas is this 20 acre estate called Fortitude Ranch. If you think you can just hide underground, you're crazy. In a collapse, there's going to be starving people going everywhere trying to find a

deer. Drew Miller runs this place. The retired Air Force intelligence colonel once helped NATO with peacekeeping missions. Now he's building fortress-like communities where people can seek shelter from catastrophic events like a nuclear blast. When the [__] hits the fan, that is the official prepper term. I was bleeped on Fox News for saying that. But when the hits the fan, and that's actually the term preers use, SHF. These camps are located far from major cities that could be targets and have underground bunkers to protect against nuclear fallout. But once it's safe to

come out, Drew says the best defensive position isn't underground. It's high above. Okay, this is actually the tallest log home in the world. And we like to build out of logs because they're fantastic for stopping bullets. Contrary to, you know, popular opinion, every member has to come armed. And Drew trains them for guard duty. They don't believe that government is going to protect them. You ready? And that's a lot of dead marauders hopefully.

Oh yeah, that plastered that puppy. That's a lot of good holes there. He employs mainly former military personnel to help with training. Just fire up when you're ready. Like Maddie, who used to be a US Army intelligence officer. Okay, set her down. Let's go see. I mean, I come down and I try to practice whenever I can, whenever I have some time. I love it out here. It's It's very peaceful. Not a lot of crowds or uh clusters.

Drew stores all the staff weapons and ammunition in vaults throughout the camp. This I want to show you is a recent buy. This is a 10 gauge. You know, this can shoot a take down a goose at up to 60 yards. in the initial days is we are shooting every edible creature we can find. So, we'll be making jerky out of it. We have a crossbow here because a deer tries to come into our gardens. We can't shoot with the weapon cuz if you hear a gunshot during a collapse, that means we could be under attack.

He also stores ready rations and high calorie survival bars. We probably call this our end days food uh because we don't want to eat this unless things are getting really, really bad. But he doesn't think he'll ever need those as he has hopes of growing crops here too. With farming, Drew says you could survive at this camp for years. I really hope you don't edit this out. Every American, if you've got a front lawn, for Christ's sake, plant some Jerusalem artichoke. It'll grow. It looks like a sunflower. It'll expand and it's got roots that you can eat to keep

yourself alive in a collapse. They also raise animals at this ranch as a source of food for when things may get rough. So this is where we keep the livestock. We do rotate them especially depending on seasons. These the eggs came from our ranch in Nevada. I'm going to work on incubate uh incubating the next batch. And our goal is to grow our chicken population as much as we possibly can because as I said, it's a great source of protein that's constantly given. He's a Dolly Llama. That's our fierce protector here at Fortitude Ranch, Texas. Does a great job. He seems like he's got a lot of thoughts going on. We just can't We just don't know what he's thinking.

Drew is also stockpiling medical supplies in case people get sick. This is an operating table here. Stretchers down there. Hope we don't have to use those. We've got military stretchers there. But the more important thing than all this physical resource is our membership. Those who want this kind of shelter have to pay a quarterly membership fee of a couple of hundred and dish out $11,000 to reserve a room like this for 10 years.

This is actually a doctor's couple. This is their room. And again, this is their stuff in here. A lot of folks bring their own alcohol, so that's what they've got. They've got toilet paper and food and alcohol. Someone's already got a really big family and they don't just want one room. They can sign up to get the entire third floor with the closable door here. And in normal times, members can still use their rooms as a vacation spot. Most of them prefer to stay anonymous. I will be honest with you, most of our membership tend to be more conservative, more libertarians. We do have some people who are liberal Democrats. Drew says since 2015, thousands have signed

up at his eight camps across the US with membership requests jumping tfold when CO hit and demand keeps climbing. There's concern that you could have a recession where a lot of the people who are unemployed, you know, don't take it well, start getting violent and there's still a lot of concern about civil war in the US. You know, the Trump lovers versus Trump haters. That's why he's adding more cabins right up to the camp's border. Bad guys are out there. It's good guy land in here.

Back underground in Colorado, Nick says spaces like these are only going to get more popular as surveys show that 63% of Americans believe a world war will break out in the next four years. This is not simulation. This is real life right now. So we are in a very precarious point in history.