AI 2026: Data Centers Restart Growth of a Stagnant U.S. Electrical Grid
Optimism about artificial intelligence has driven a massive new wave of construction to house the chips AI depends on. The energy required to power these data centers will alter the whole U.S. grid.
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Corporate investments in artificial intelligence, especially in the construction of a new generation of data centers built to provide computational power or “compute” for generative AI, have driven over one-third of the United States’ GDP growth in the first nine months of 2025.1 These new data centers will also substantially increase both peak and total electricity demand, after two decades in which power demand was nearly flat, and grew at well under a 1% compound annual growth rate.2 Today, the entire U.S. data center sector draws a total of less than 15 gigawatts (GW) of power, but the pipeline of new data centers under construction will, if all planned facilities right now are completed, add 140 GW of new load to the current total U.S. peak demand of 760 GW, an increase of almost 20%.3