The growth of U.S. data centers will run into power availability issues and permitting bottlenecks, spurring more technology companies to secure access to electricity directly from renewable power generators, though any systemic risks to electrical grids will likely be localized. The growing importance of cloud computing and artificial intelligence is rapidly increasing demand for the physical spaces these technologies rely on to store, process, manage and share data. But these data centers also consume high levels of energy to both power, as well as cool down, the digital systems they house. Some individual data centers and campuses have capacities to consume above 100 megawatts (MW), while the capacity of some planned centers even surpasses 1,000 MW, which is roughly equivalent to the power created by a utility-scale, natural gas-fired power plant or a nuclear reactor. Much of the growth of data centers over the last five years predated the explosion...
