Hardware
Gigawatt AI campuses push utilities into an unprecedented build-out
Power companies across three continents announced their largest capital programmes in decades, driven almost entirely by AI datacenter demand.
By Daniel Reyes, Chips & Infrastructure Editor — DALLAS
DALLAS — Utilities across North America, Europe and Asia announced their largest capital programmes in a generation this month, with executives citing a single driver: gigawatt-scale AI datacenter campuses arriving faster than grids were built to absorb.
AI campuses under construction or contract now exceed forty gigawatts of demand globally — roughly the consumption of a mid-sized industrialised nation — and developers are increasingly bringing their own generation, from gas turbines to small modular reactor commitments, rather than waiting in interconnection queues.
Consumer advocates warn that ordinary ratepayers must not underwrite speculative build-outs, and several regulators have opened proceedings on who pays when projected AI demand fails to materialise.
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