Cy McGeady, Joseph Majkut, Barath Harithas, and Karl Smith
It is now well understood that the rapid technological progress of artificial intelligence (AI) has profound energy sector implications. AI technology is effectively the result of three inputs: chips, data, and electricity. This paper focuses on electricity on the basic premise that electricity supply is the most acutely binding constraint on expanded U.S. computational capacity and, therefore, U.S. AI dominance.
This paper starts with a survey of demand-side forecasts. It then highlights data on the geographic distribution of data center development currently underway in the United States, the supply-side dynamics underway in response to demand growth, and challenges to meeting this new demand. The role of coal, gas, renewables, and nuclear power in meeting new demand are each assessed. The central principle for understanding these developments is speed-to-power, or the measure of how fast a potential data center site can access the electricity needed to power its stock of chips.
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