The launch of multiple new generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) platforms seems set to radically transform the ways that people work and live around the globe. Yet behind each prompt and query entered into GenAI are thousands of data centers that devour energy at a rate that – if forecasts are to be believed – will transform electricity grids around the world. This Perspectives article provides a view into the rapidly evolving world of GenAI data centers, but with a specific focus on how those data centers are set to reshape the U.S. electricity grid. Drawing on previous research on how the financial sector is shaping the US electricity grid as well as preliminary research on powering the GenAI data center buildout, this article first outlines the various firms and institutions that are participating in the data center buildout. It then turns to relate the data center buildout to the U.S. electricity grid. The article continues by positing five questions that energy researchers should contend with in the coming years: (1) Will Big Tech back away from climate pledges? (2) Will the data center – electricity infrastructure timing match up? (3) Where is data center demand? (4) Who will pay for the new electricity infrastructure? and (5) What happens if this is just a bubble? In the conclusion, it points to several potential avenues for empirical and theoretical research on the data center – electricity grid nexus.
Conor Harrison (Tue,) studied this question.