| Chart of the Day |
| SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 |
COST OF LIVING • ECONOMY |
|
| U.S. Data Centers Used 31 Gigawatts Last Year. In 2027, They’ll Use 66. |
| That’s the electricity for 27 million American homes… added to the grid in 24 months. |
| 31 GW |
→ |
66 GW |
2025
ACTUAL |
|
2027
PROJECTED |
|
|
|
| Total electricity drawn by U.S. data centers, in gigawatts. 2027 figure is the Goldman Sachs base-case forecast covering AI capacity under construction and in the interconnection queue. |
| Source: Goldman Sachs Research, 2026 |
|
| For the last 20 years, U.S. electricity demand grew at less than 1% a year. Some years it fell. Nobody built a new power plant on speculation. Then AI showed up. |
| Everyone’s watching the AI stocks. Nvidia. The chip designers. The cloud giants. That’s the part everyone sees. Here’s what nobody talks about at dinner: none of it runs without electricity, and America’s grid hasn’t been asked to grow this fast since the 1960s. |
| And here’s the part that really gets me. Goldman Sachs put a number on it. In 2025, U.S. data centers pulled 31 gigawatts off the grid. In 2027, they’ll pull 66. That’s not a forecast for a decade out. That’s the next 24 months. The turbines to build the new gas plants? Elon Musk warned last week they’re sold out through 2030. |
| One of three things happens next. Utilities build gas plants and nuclear faster than they have in 50 years. Or they don’t, and your electric bill absorbs the shortage. Or the AI boom gets rationed. Nobody in Washington is talking about which. But every quarterly call from a utility CEO has started to. |
