US Hyperscalers To Consume 22% More Grid Power By End of 2025

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Hyperscale datacenters stateside will consume 22 percent more grid power by the end of 2025 than a year ago, and are forecast to need nearly three times as much electricity by the end of the decade. Warnings about datacenters' rising energy draw are coming thick and fast of late, and this latest one from 451 Research (now a part of S&P Global) comes with figures and cautions about how fast this change may occur and what grid resources will be required to meet it.

The bit barn building boom is largely fueled by estimated demand for new machine learning models, which require highly configured servers packed with power-hungry GPUs to develop and train. The power and cooling infrastructure required also mean it is easier to build a new facility rather than attempt to retrofit an existing one. As a consequence, utility power to datacenters in America is estimated to jump 11.3 GW to 61.8 GW by the end of this year. 451 calculates this will rise again to 75.8 GW in 2026, then 108 GW in 2028, before hitting 134.4 GW by 2030. These figures also exclude enterprise-owned facilities, only considering those of the hyperscale tech giants such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, alongside leased and crypto-mining sites.

The research identifies Virginia and Texas as the two states with by far the highest requirement for bit barn energy supplies in the US this year. 451 forecasts that Virginia's datacenter load, made up of leased and hyperscale facilities, will reach 12.1 GW in 2025, up from 9.3 GW last year. In Texas, demand is driven by cryptomining and leased capacity, and is slated to hit 9.7 GW this year, from less than 8 GW previously. However, the search for an optimum location is seeing datacenter operators explore emerging markets such as Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma and smaller cities in West Texas, looking for "stranded power" and alternative energy generation opportunities, the report says.

There should be balance.

[ndsurvivor]

Let Big Tech build the data centers anywhere, but don't jack up the prices that average people pay for electricity. Put the burden back on them.

Re:There should be balance.

[dfghjk]

That's not how capitalism works. Any excuse to raise prices will be exploited, electricity is not a free market.

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

The result of unfettered capitalism is that one person owns everything, and has all of the money. Now we are at a point where about 2,000 people own most of the money. I think that is contrary to Democracy, and to the Constitution of the United States.

Re:

[Geoffrey.landis]

Turns out that the constitution says nothing about that.

This may be a flaw.

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

The Constitution was a compromise from Slavery to Oligarchy. I think that Ben Franklin said it the best after signing: "We have a Republic if we can keep it". I have this nagging belief that we need a new Constitution that values the middle class. Jefferson had a belief that we would have a new Constitution Convention about every 30 years, for an update. But I believe that some people got power and money from the original writings, and manipulated things such that it wouldn't be changed again.

Re:

[buck-yar]

More like they didn't harden it enough against people twisting things like the commerce clause for 99% of govt spending. The federal govt's ability to control commerce was to prevent states from taxing goods flowing through it. Not turn every member of congress into feudal lords that disburse funds and pick winners. I doubt Madison had in mind taxing hard working people to give to gay pride centers or whoever else the politicians want to curry favor with at that particular moment with large sums of someone

Actually if does

[rsilvergun]

General welfare clause. It's part of the law. It's not in the preamble.

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

We are clearly "talking past each other". You lost me at: "the only legal political party". The founding fathers of the USA did not want political parties, and neither do I. I reject a lot of your other assumptions as well.

180deg wrong

[buck-yar]

Where would Elon be without $7500/car credit? Or Bezos without a sweetheart deal with the USPS for 2 day shipping (at a time when everything took a week or two)? Or Google's 2 founders getting bankrolled by the NSF/NSA while in college? All the big companies lobby to have the laws written in their favor. Everywhere we look, govt had a hand in helping the superrich become superrich. Then when anything happens, like 2008, they steal from the poor to further enrich themselves. That $16000/person payroll protec

Re:

[evanh]

That's exactly a free market. Deregulation always tends toward monopolies. The freer it is the easier it is to exploit.

Maybe economics should be taught in school

[buck-yar]

Regulation always tends toward monopolies. The more regulated, the is the easier it is to exploit.

Conservatives and libertarians are the party of small govt. Liberal authoritiarians and statists, are the power of the super rich and their bootlicker supporters. Usually power and is dolled out to supporters for support, but some people like evanh are so conditioned they'll shill for the elite for free.

Re:

[sarren1901]

Except we don't have deregulation. We have copyright, patents and other government backed things to foster "competition". Without that, you could just copy and sell. The only advantage would be first to market. I hear China is good at doing this, this being copying the work of others, then selling it for less.

Re:

[MacMann]

Let Big Tech build the data centers anywhere, but don't jack up the prices that average people pay for electricity. Put the burden back on them.

The utilities, grid, free market, and so much else will not see things that way. What is seen is an increased demand in electricity, that drives up prices to both discourage use and encourage new electricity generating capacity. If the electricity use can be driven down because people are drying their clothes on clotheslines than a dryer, cooking on propane grill than an electric stove, then that's mission accomplished for them.

Maybe the data centers *SHOULD* pay the price for the electricity demand they

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

Wind and Solar is more affordable than Nuclear power. Until we can agree on facts, I can't discuss this with a person who just makes shit up. Scarcity does change behavior, I would rather Big Tech change their behavior than me having to sleep in the kitchen in order to be warm.

Re:

[XXongo]

Wind and Solar is more affordable than Nuclear power.

Depends on location and application.

With that said, though, nuclear power is currently about the most expensive of power sources (*). The advocates for small reactors make the case that economy of production of many units will make small reactors less expensive, but this is considered dubious by most of the people who understand nuclear technology.

--
*(unless you put a negative dollar value on CO2 emissions).

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

I am for "all of the above" strategies for energy. Let the best source win without political or tax cuts influence.

Politics is everything.

[buck-yar]

Decisions about how things work is politics. It also explains a lot of nonsensical things. Like why is it more profitable to mine bitcoin or run AI than say, grow food? The first two are arguably a waste of energy, the latter is essential to life.

Re:

[MacMann]

Wind and Solar is more affordable than Nuclear power.

If that were true then why would anyone, such as the CCP in China, build any nuclear power plants?

The reason people would build nuclear power plants is because nuclear power is reliable. I'll see opponents to nuclear power point to how a nuclear power plant needs to go through a lengthy shutdown for refueling. I have two responses to that.

First, we can build CANDU or MSR reactors that don't require being shutdown for refueling. I don't recall the record set for continuous operation for a CANDU reactor bu

Re:

[Dan667]

It is worse than that. In Texas the deep freeze of the last couple of years and the failed electrical grid has literally killed people. And have they fixed the power grid? No they are worried about stupid stuff like what bathroom you pee in. More people at the hands of conservatives are going to die.

Re:

[Agripa]

Let Big Tech build the data centers anywhere, but don't jack up the prices that average people pay for electricity. Put the burden back on them.

That is the political solution which ignores economics and created the current dilemma, but sure, let's repeat what failed before. Maybe it will work this time.

Yeah but it's so worth it

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

How else will I be able to feel that deep sense of dread when I call any company's customer support and I'm greeted by an overly polite chatbot that's so syrupy it gives me type-2, that doesn't understand my problem and refuses to let me talk to a real person?

Re:Yeah but it's so worth it

[hwstar]

What really is so stupid is "Fake Typing" when you respond to the question. There's no typing going on, you're just red to believe there is because they want you to believe you're talking to someone with a pulse.

These will gravitate to states with cheap power

[hwstar]

and cool climates. Expect consumers to pay more for power in those states.

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

Why expect consumers to pay more? We are a Democracy and the middle class and poor people have been jacked up enough. If Big Tech wants to build Big Data Centers, they should pay for all of it. This is exactly a tax without representation.

Re:

[buck-yar]

They didn't get rich by spending their own money. They want a stream of profit from these datacenters. That leaked Oracle internal document said what, they're getting $0.14 cents on the dollar of investment on these datacenters in return? Spread the cost around, send the bill to the consumer, that's how they can make a profit off this. AI is trash that nobody wants, and they need a way to pay for their massive expenditures. Isn't this obvious?

Re:

[sarren1901]

That's not how commodity pricing works. Of course the masses will pay for the elites power usage. Utilities don't care where the demand is coming from, only that they are happy to supply it and they are also allowed to surge price their products.

Everything about America makes more sense if you look at it through the lens of big business. USA exist to help those with money make more money. You don't even need to be an American to enjoy the benefit. For example, anyone with the money can buy real estate in th

Can we grow up n stop pretending it's about demand

[Rujiel]

Consumer demand doesn't mean shit, consumer profitability is not why these datacenters are here to take all our power and water. The elites are desperate for the golden goose of finally replacing labor, destroying the capacity of workers to organize once and for all, and turning most of the population into precariet thralls. I'm sick of reading articles where this is posited as being due to demand in a free market sense. The free market is secondary, in fact this arc of greed shows that it was always secondary.