US AI data center power gap

A RAND analysis of the US electricity interconnection queue found that of 1,086 GW of planned generation capacity, roughly 33 GW of net new power will realistically be available to serve AI data centers by 2030, after accounting for project withdrawals, reliability constraints, and planned retirements. Against that constrained supply, demand forecasts have risen sharply: BloombergNEF revised its 2030 US data center capacity projection upward by 52% to 118 GW, and 83% upward to 194 GW by 2035. 451 Research projects US data center grid power demand will reach 61.8 GW in 2025 and 134.4 GW by 2030. TrendForce projects global data center capacity will grow from 100.5 GW in 2024 to 211.1 GW by 2027, with AI servers accounting for roughly one quarter of global data center power demand in 2025 and potentially exceeding 40% by 2027. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates data centers could consume 9% to 17% of all US electricity by 2030.

On the supply side, SpaceX has begun bringing turbine blade and vane casting in-house to address bottlenecks caused by US grid connection delays pushing AI data center projects toward portable natural gas turbine generators. Elon Musk said the move could cut generator procurement delays by 18 months. Turbine blade production currently takes 60 to 90 weeks per batch. Howmet Aerospace, which holds roughly half of the global market share for natural gas turbine components, saw its stock fall more than 7% following the announcement before partially recovering.