U.S. AI Choked by Power? Massive Data Centers Face Idling Risk, Power Equipment Industry Sees Opportunity  

 

Reports say due to local utility unable to supply power, U.S. data center providers Digital Realty and Stack Infrastructure's two data center projects in Santa Clara, California—Nvidia's headquarters location—may idle for years.  

 

Digital Realty applied to build a data center in 2019, project now empty four-story building 40,000 square meters, not fully operational; Stack Infrastructure's local data center 50,000 square meters building, four floors empty data halls, factory originally applied for planning permit in 2021.  

 

Santa Clara city utility Silicon Valley Power still working to boost power capacity, per May city council report, city has 57 operating or under-construction data centers.  

 

When can these data centers fully operate? Perhaps three years from now.  

 

Silicon Valley Power says signed agreements with both companies clarifying service terms and conditions, continuously assessing additional power demand, "We're doing $450 million system upgrade to meet these and other customers' needs, project on track, complete in 2028."  

 

Digital Realty spokesperson Jordan Sadler said three-year energy wait "consistent with most U.S. areas for securing power supply," but in high-demand areas like Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia, wait longer. Digital Realty has over 300 data centers globally.  

 

Compared to large AI model development centers now building in Texas, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Mexico, Santa Clara projects relatively small scale.  

 

Reports say U.S. power system pressure only growing, as demand surge exceeds grid available power and transmission infrastructure, power companies across U.S. struggle to meet demand, expected by 2035 U.S. AI computing power electricity demand may more than double.  

AI Heavily Boosts U.S. Power Demand, Power Equipment Industry Poised for Opportunity  

Driven by booming cloud computing and artificial intelligence, U.S. data center demand unprecedented high, but power supply biggest constraint due to aging power infrastructure and regulatory barriers.  

 

OpenAI plans to deploy over 250GW compute centers by 2033.

 

Huayuan Securities says U.S. 2022-2024 peak load around 820GW, OpenAI alone new load over 1/4 current national peak load. U.S. current stable power ~1,000GW, load reserve rate only 20%, power supply tight. Per GridStrategies forecast, by 2029 U.S. peak load to 947GW (up 128GW from 2024), with AIDC main driver (90GW). U.S. largest ISO PJM also raising load forecasts yearly, latest 2025 forecast to 2030 peak load 184GW (up 19.3% from 2025).  

 

Facing power tightness, U.S. power construction severely lagging. Per EIA, by 2030 planned grid addition ~260GW, natural gas generation only 38GW, plus ~67GW electrochemical storage, retired capacity ~94GW mainly coal etc reliable power, future must sharply boost power construction intensity.

 

Grid side faces same problem, U.S. grid aging serious, current grid investment mainly for replacement and reliability strengthening. Once power construction exceeds expectations, grid construction intensity also sharp increase.