Can AI solve the energy problem it created?

We have all the electricity we need to power AI’s data center demand—and AI can unlock it for next to nothing.

[Source photo: Adobe Stock]

It costs about $5 and takes roughly 15 minutes to train an AI model that can help determine where America’s next data centers should be built.

That’s not a rounding error. The world is debating hundred-billion-dollar AI investments and warning that we need fleets of new power plants, yet one of the most important pieces of the puzzle costs about as much as a pack of gum. Before we build another plant, we should figure out how much of the grid we’re already leaving on the table.

Much has been made of AI’s power requirements, and for good reason. Bloomberg projects that data centers will consume up to one-fifth of all power in the U.S. by 2035—up to 200 gigawatts—with much of that demand landing in regions where power is already constrained. Power generation wait times can stretch past five years on a grid where much of the infrastructure is 50 to 70 years old. The pressure is real, and it’s arriving faster than utilities can plan for it with current systems and processes.

What most people don’t realize is that our existing grid massively overproduces the energy we need, and much of it sits idle. Power systems are sized for the handful of hours a year when demand........

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