AI Data Centers Potentially Disrupting US Power Grid, Raising Concerns

AI Development May Be 'Distorting' Electricity Flow in US: Report

America currently has the highest rate of data centers in the world. The rapid increase in data centers to meet the growing demand for AI could be causing distorted electricity for thousands of Americans, according to new research from Bloomberg. The Electric Power Research Institute expects AI data centers to use 9% of the total electricity generated in the U.S. by 2030. As the technology continues to grow, Bloomberg reported that it is now threatening "billions in damage" to homes and aging power equipment. 'Distorted' Electricity From AI Could Be a Real Danger New evidence suggests that over half of the homes showing the worst power distortions in the U.S. lived within 20 miles of data center activity. The link suggests that homes closer to data centers are experiencing "bad harmonics," which means a below-stable electricity flow. While this is an issue in itself for everyday living, Bloomberg said it had the potential to lead to house fires and blackouts in the future. "Sudden surges or sags in electrical supplies can lead to sparks and even home fires," the report stated. "Left unaddressed, one problem can morph into another. That means the bad harmonics of today can be a sign of potential disaster down the road." America has become the largest operator of data centers in the world. In Northern Virginia alone, the data center hub provides double the capacity of all of Beijing. Data Centers Growing Faster Than Electricity Grids As the demand for AI continues to grow, the need for data centers also expands, driven by the immense computational power required to train and deploy AI models. According to Bloomberg, the electricity grid has never faced the strain it currently faces with the unprecedented growth of data centers and AI. "These city-sized users can pop up very quickly, within a year or two, which is much faster than grid planning usually happens," Bloomberg reported. " The report claimed that installing thousands of these facilities to meet AI demand will cause more strain than any population boom. Trump's Anti-environment Policies The move comes as President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to renew power to fossil fuels and remove regulations on AI, takes office in January. In his previous term, Trump reversed more than 110 climate policies, including those focused on clean air and water. Trump's anti-environment focus is expected to come head-to-head with the switches being attempted by Big Tech, which has been looking to incorporate green solutions into AI development. Peter Wood, Spectrum Search's CTO, told CCN that Big Tech's plans to power data centers with wind and nuclear energy could encounter some obstacles under a Trump presidency. "He's been pretty vocal about backing fossil fuels, so it's possible that government support for renewables like wind farms could be scaled back," Wood said. "Tax incentives that currently make green energy projects more attractive might be reduced, making investments in sustainable infrastructure more expensive."

AI data centers could be 'distorting' the US power grid | TechCrunch

The proliferation of data centers aiming to meet the computational needs of AI could be bad news for the US power grid, according to a new report in Bloomberg. Using the 1 million residential sensors tracked by Whisker Labs, along with market intelligence data from DC Byte, Bloomberg found that more than half of the households showing the worst power distortions live within 20 miles of significant data center activity. In other words, there appears to be a link between data center proximity and "bad harmonics" -- a term for the less-than-ideal flow of electrical power into homes. Bloomberg says this "distorted" power could eventually destroy plugged-in appliances, increase vulnerability to electrical fires, and even lead to brownouts and blackouts. And AI data centers could be even more problematic because of their volatile energy requirements. "No grid is designed to be able to handle that kind of load fluctuation not only for one data center but for multiple data centers at the same time," said Bloom Energy's chief commercial officer Aman Joshi. A spokesperson for Chicago's Commonwealth Edison told Bloomberg the utility "strongly questions the accuracy and underlying assumptions of Whisker Lab's claims."