U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm offered assurances that the U.S. will be able to meet the soaring demands for electricity to power the surge in data centers driving the tech sector’s artificial intelligence boom.
“The explosive growth of AI is posing this big question: Are we going to have enough energy to power AI?” Granholm told reporters in a briefing Friday. “We emphatically say yes, we will.”
After a long period of relatively flat electricity demand, the U.S. is now experiencing an increase in power needs that the Department of Energy projects will double electricity demand by midcentury. Manufacturing growth and the electrification of more cars and home appliances all add to the growing demand, but the rapid growth of data centers to train and operate AI systems has emerged as a major area of need.