Electricity Grid & Utilities
The US power grid — the physical constraint now gating AI datacenter buildout
The aging US electrical grid (interconnection queues, transmission bottlenecks, transformer shortages) has become the binding constraint on AI datacenter expansion. Data centers are projected to consume roughly 9-12% of US electricity by 2028 (up from ~4% in 2023), with individual gigawatt-scale campuses straining regional utilities like PJM, ERCOT and Dominion. Interconnection wait times of 4-7 years, multi-year lead times on large transformers, and grid-stability concerns from spiky AI loads make power delivery — not chips — the near-term bottleneck for many projects.
US DC electricity share by 2028
~9-12% (from ~4% in 2023)
Interconnection queue wait
4-7 years in constrained regions
Large transformer lead time
2-4 years
Key constrained grids
PJM, ERCOT, Dominion/Virginia (Data Center Alley)
How it fits the stack
Electricity Grid & Utilities with what it depends on (above) and what it feeds (below). The figure renders as a crawlable diagram and upgrades to an interactive 3D graph as it scrolls into view.
Electricity Grid & Utilities in the AI stack. Electricity Grid & Utilities with its immediate upstream dependencies (top) and downstream dependents (bottom) in the AI value chain. Hover a node in 3D, or read the full relationships below.
Graph data (text) — 14 entities, 13 relationships
- Electricity Grid & Utilities —supplies→ Copper
- Electricity Grid & Utilities —supplies→ GE Vernova
- Electricity Grid & Utilities —depends on→ Grid Transformers & Switchgear
- Electricity Grid & Utilities —depends on→ Siemens Energy
- 'Eastern Data, Western Compute' —depends on→ Electricity Grid & Utilities
- AI electricity demand / grid strain —depends on→ Electricity Grid & Utilities
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) —depends on→ Electricity Grid & Utilities
- CoreWeave (financing) —depends on→ Electricity Grid & Utilities
- CoreWeave Data Centers —depends on→ Electricity Grid & Utilities
- Crusoe Energy —depends on→ Electricity Grid & Utilities
- Digital Realty —depends on→ Electricity Grid & Utilities
- Electricity Grid & Utilities —partners with→ AI Infrastructure Partnership
- Electricity Grid & Utilities —partners with→ Energy & Utilities AI
Depends on ↑ · 4
Feeds ↓ · 24