AI boom hits an electricity wall

America’s tech titans have the chips—and the cash—but they’re running into a wall of watts. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the constraint on AI isn’t compute but electricity and how fast data centers can be built near power. Hyperscalers plan roughly $400 billion of spend this year, yet two-year build cycles for data centers and five-to-10-year lead times for transmission are colliding with surging demand. In Virginia, Dominion’s order book has swelled to 47 gigawatts, underscoring why data centers could consume 7% to 12% of U.S. electricity by 2030, up from about 4% today. Not everyone buys the most aggressive forecasts—some analysts warn many projects won’t make it off the drawing board. For investors, the AI race is increasingly a story about siting, permitting, and power-delivery risk—where utilities, grid buildout, and alternative energy deals may determine who scales and who stalls.

Read more