Prices at the Pumps - April 17, 2024 #saltwire #energymarkets #pricesatthepumps #gaspricesNEW YORK - U.S. electrical systems are not expanding fast enough to meet rapidly growing power needs of technology like Generative AI, prompting data center businesses to sometimes bypass utilities, executives said at an energy conference this week.
The delays have led data center businesses to bypass utilities and strike deals directly with power generators or build their own supply. "We always assumed there would be power, but obviously that assumption was woefully inaccurate, so now we're chasing where power is," said Phill Lawson-Shanks, Chief Innovation Officer at Aligned.
Power companies also lamented the constraints with meeting the electricity needs of companies supporting chatbots like ChatGPT, which requires about 10 times the energy as a Google search, and other forms of artificial intelligence.