Anonymous
ID: p/sXACef
8/15/2025, 8:51:43 PM No.513131192
AI experts return from China stunned: The U.S. grid is so weak, the race may already be over
http://archive.today/GmImi
The clear limiting factor to the U.S.’s data center infrastructure development, according to a Deloitte industry survey, is stress on the power grid. Cities’ power grids are so weak that some companies are just building their own power plants rather than relying on existing grids. The public is growing increasingly frustrated over increasing energy bills – in Ohio, the electricity bill for a typical household has increased at least $15 this summer from the data centers – while energy companies prepare for a sea-change of surging demand.
Goldman Sachs frames the crisis simply: “AI’s insatiable power demand is outpacing the grid’s decade-long development cycles, creating a critical bottleneck.”
Meanwhile, David Fishman, a Chinese electricity expert who has spent years tracking their energy development, told Fortune that in China, electricity isn’t even a question. On average, China adds more electricity demand than the entire annual consumption of Germany, every single year. Whole rural provinces are blanketed in rooftop solar, with one province matching the entirety of India’s electricity supply.
China has an oversupply of electricty.
China’s quiet electricity dominance, Fishman explained, is the result of decades of deliberate overbuilding and investment in every layer of the power sector, from generation to transmission to next-generation nuclear.
The country’s reserve margin has never dipped below 80%–100% nationwide, meaning it has consistently maintained at least twice the capacity it needs, Fishman said. They have so much available space that instead of seeing AI data centers as a threat to grid stability, China treats them as a convenient way to “soak up oversupply,” he added.
That level of cushion is unthinkable in the United States, where regional grids typically operate with a 15% reserve margin and sometimes less.
http://archive.today/GmImi
The clear limiting factor to the U.S.’s data center infrastructure development, according to a Deloitte industry survey, is stress on the power grid. Cities’ power grids are so weak that some companies are just building their own power plants rather than relying on existing grids. The public is growing increasingly frustrated over increasing energy bills – in Ohio, the electricity bill for a typical household has increased at least $15 this summer from the data centers – while energy companies prepare for a sea-change of surging demand.
Goldman Sachs frames the crisis simply: “AI’s insatiable power demand is outpacing the grid’s decade-long development cycles, creating a critical bottleneck.”
Meanwhile, David Fishman, a Chinese electricity expert who has spent years tracking their energy development, told Fortune that in China, electricity isn’t even a question. On average, China adds more electricity demand than the entire annual consumption of Germany, every single year. Whole rural provinces are blanketed in rooftop solar, with one province matching the entirety of India’s electricity supply.
China has an oversupply of electricty.
China’s quiet electricity dominance, Fishman explained, is the result of decades of deliberate overbuilding and investment in every layer of the power sector, from generation to transmission to next-generation nuclear.
The country’s reserve margin has never dipped below 80%–100% nationwide, meaning it has consistently maintained at least twice the capacity it needs, Fishman said. They have so much available space that instead of seeing AI data centers as a threat to grid stability, China treats them as a convenient way to “soak up oversupply,” he added.
That level of cushion is unthinkable in the United States, where regional grids typically operate with a 15% reserve margin and sometimes less.
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