As demand for clean electricity to run data centers increases, operators are considering nuclear energy. But the path to power has a few roadblocks.
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Data center power constraints and burgeoning AI workloads have companies scrambling to find new sources of electricity.
Fully 40% of existing AI data centers will be “operationally constrained by power availability” by 2027, Gartner predicts, and the research firm estimates the demand from incremental AI servers will reach 500 terawatt-hours per year by then, which is 2.6 times the 2023 level.
“The explosive growth of new hyperscale data centers to implement [generative AI] is creating an insatiable demand for power that will exceed the ability of utility providers to expand their capacity fast enough,” said Bob Johnson, vice president analyst at Gartner. “In turn, this threatens to disrupt energy availability and lead to shortages, which will limit the growth of new data centers for genAI and other …