US power grids can't withstand the AI boom.

According to Mars Finance, the recent AI boom has led to a surge in electricity demand from data centers across the United States, causing electricity prices to rise continuously in many areas, and even issuing power outage warnings in some regions. To alleviate the power supply crisis, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on the 18th requested regional grid operators to consider new agreements to accelerate the grid connection of large electricity consumers such as data centers. The FERC also stated that future rule-making will no longer proactively consider environmental impact based on the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act. According to data from Data Center Maps, there are currently over 4,000 data centers in operation in the United States, with many more in the planning or construction phase. However, the construction speed of these data centers far exceeds the commissioning speed of new power plants, and the grid connection process is too slow. Therefore, major U.S. tech giants are trying every means to secure electricity quotas for their data centers. Statistics from the Electricity Research Institute (ERI) show that data centers currently account for about 5% of total U.S. electricity demand, and this percentage may rise to about 20% by 2035. (CCTV Finance)