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“The demand for power and for AI is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

These words were uttered during an October earnings call, not by a wide-eyed tech executive, but by Jeff Miller, the CEO of Halliburton, one of the world’s biggest oilfield services corporations.

Like droves of other companies tied to the fracked gas industry, Halliburton is pivoting toward servicing the data center boom with new loads of methane-emitting, gas-fired power generation to feed the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble being stoked by Silicon Valley billionaires and allied corporate elites.

Halliburton is merely one of many fossil fuel companies that are striking deals to power the insatiable electricity needs of data centers. More specifically, the natural gas industry — frackers, gasfield services, pipeline companies, power suppliers — are positioning themselves as bold saviors ready to step in and meet AI’s bottomless energy demands.

In doing this, fracked gas companies are fully backed by the Trump administration, with its ideological dedication to fossil fuels and its cozy relationship with billionaire oil and gas donors. For its part, Big Tech is going along, largely sidelining its purported commitments to renewable energy.

As the global climate emergency intensifies, none of this bodes well. Despite being sold as a “clean” fossil fuel, fracked gas emits loads of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and local communities — often rural, low-income, and predominantly Black — bear the brunt of the combined nexus of data center behemoths and fossil fuel power generation being constructed in their backyards.

“The natural gas industry is directly aligning with the data center industry.”

“The natural gas industry is directly aligning with the data center industry,” Tyson Slocum, the director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, told Truthout. “From a climate perspective, and from a local environmental perspective, data centers represent a significant impediment to action on climate change.”

“Icing on the Cake”

Natural gas currently provides over 40 percent of the electricity for data centers, making gas-fired power stations their largest power source, according to the International Energy Agency.

The massive demand for electricity from data centers is driving a surge in the construction of power generation infrastructure fueled by natural gas.

One McKinsey analyst recently noted that over 100 gigawatts (GW) of new gas-fired projects are being planned. “To put that number in perspective,” he said, “over the last five years, the U.S. added only about 35 GW of gas,” meaning this is “almost triple what it was.”

Utilities announced a slew of new gas-fired power projects in 2025 — a factor that helps explain private equity’s rush to acquire utilities. Utility powering of data centers is expected to skyrocket by 22 percent this year.

Industry leaders are swooning. “It’s been 40 or 50 years, or so, since we’ve seen demand grow the way it’s growing and is expected to grow,” said one executive of energy giant NRG.

“AI is obviously a big part,” he added.

The core driver of the fracked gas industry over the past decade has been the booming production of liquified natural gas (LNG) for export, which has vastly

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