Debra K. Rubin
Johanna Knapschaefer
July 24, 2025
The statistics seem astounding, as forecasts for artificial intelligence demand push expansion of data center and power infrastructure into hyper-blitz in the U.S., and beyond
The U.S. Energy Dept. said last year that data centers already account for more than 4% of U.S. electricity use, which could grow to 12% by 2028—akin to 580 billion kilowatt hours, with AI use comprising up to 40% of global data-center power demand by 2026, according to research in energy journal Joule. Consultant McKinsey & Co.’s outlook last year pointed to a rise in global capacity annual demand of up to 22% in 2030, amounting to between 171 and 219 GW. “This contrasts with the current demand of 60 GW, raising potential for a significant supply deficit,” said the research firm.
New data center facilities now each seek 500 MW or more of capacity, enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes, with Moody’s Investors predicting investment to exceed $2 trillion in the next four years.
But turning the investment into real infrastructure with adequate power wont be easy, industry practitioners say.
‘Hyper Scaling’
The plan follows a July 15 “Energy and Innovation Summit” in Pittsburgh organized by Pennsylvania Senate Republican David McCormick, which featured administration heads as well as academic, investment, technology and energy sector chiefs, who touted up to $90 billion in recent and new commitments to data center and energy infrastructure in the state. These include $20 billion from Amazon Web Services to build out infrastructure and $15 billion from FirstEnergy to expand and fortify power grids.
“Our intention is to raise $30 billion of capital and raise another associated $100 billion of debt working with Google and all the other hyperscalers,” Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, told the conference.
In April, Homer City Generating Station—once Pennsylvania’s largest coal plant—announced it would convert to be a 4.6-GW natural gas facility to power a planned $10-billion data center campus of 3,200 acres, equipped with seven gas turbines from GE Vernova. The project sponsor is a private investor group, and Kiewit Corp. is design-builder.
Hyperscalers have announced other efforts to move quickly and in a big way. The Stargate initiative, touted by Trump in January with key backers including technology giants OpenAI and Oracle and sector investor SoftBank, is aimed to invest $500 billion through 2029 to build data centers and infrastructure. But the effort has since reduced its scale and speed, with developer Crusoe and contractor DPR building two centers in Abilene, Texas, the first set to operate this year and the second in mid-2026,
This month, startup Fermi America, backed by former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry and other investors, unveiled HyperGrid, a planned data center and power complex on 5,800 acres in Amarillo, Texas, that is owned by Texas Tech University. According to Fermi America co-founder and investor Toby Neugebauer: “We’re going to create the largest private grid in the world.” The development is said to cost $300 billion and will provide 11 GW of power from natural gas, solar energy and eventually from four Westinghouse AP-1000 nuclear reactors when fully completed. Its Initial 1-GW phase is aimed to be on line in 2026, with early site engineering finished, said the firm.
A Fermi America spokeswoman said it will reveal names of nuclear energy veterans hired as experts and release procurement detail “in the near future,” but she did not disclose project investors or investment totals. The reactor building plan was submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 17 and “accepted for review in record time,” the spokeswoman said.
Data center demand has created development hubs across the U.S., such as in northern Virginia. Dubbed “Data Center Alley,” and said to be the world’s largest concentration of the facilities, it continues to grow. Large state utility Dominion Energy, which hosts 13% of global data center capacity, reported in its May quarterly results that data related power projects in development nearly doubled to 40.2 GW in December from 21.4 GW last July. The utility company projects 85% demand growth over the next 15 years.
Dominion CEO Robert Blue still expects that demand growth—even after Chinese AI company DeepSeek released earlier this year a more energy-efficient AI model that industry observers speculated could reduce data center space and power needs, and as U.S. economic uncertainty from Trump tariffs further affect AI infrastructure development scope and pace. “We’re seeing continued appetite for additional data center capacity in our service territory,” he said. Developers “want to go fast … That’s their business, that’s always been their business,” Blue said. “I don’t see any reason why that’s going to change.”
