AI’s Next Digital Leap: Can It Be Powered? 

AI does not only concern data. It is also the expensive and high energy intensity infrastructure necessary to execute sophisticated AI semiconductors and cloud computes. Will the United States and Europe produce and offer enough clean and affordable electricity to maintain their ambitions?

So far, the answer is no.

European and American governments and the main cloud computing companies – led by Google, Amazon and Microsoft – are struggling to operate the data centers without breaking their own energy commitments. Under Donald Trump, the United States is about tospeed authorizing gas centers. On the other hand, Europe is likely to be delayed, expanding the gap in transatlantic competitiveness.

Competition with China is fierce. Beijing executes Coordinated deploymentsenergy and digital infrastructure, grouping land, clean powerAnd fiber in industrial areas at national level designed for the development of AI and Cloud.

Data centers consume today only about 4%total American energy supplies. At the end of the decade, this issue is settled on triple. The larger the data center, the more powerful the AI is. Existing large language models like Chatgpt need large facilities to carry out their operations and respond to requests. Basically, a chatgpt query consumes as much energy as a bulb20 minutes.

The defenders of the Action Plan of the just announced AI of the Trump administration rationalized the authorization agreements and the long -term infrastructure transactions. Clusters of massive data centers in states such as TexasThe “zero terrestrial” of the Trump Stargate AI program benefit from abundant wind and solar, flexible grids and regulatory environments that reward speed.

Even thus, shortages appear. The largest electrical network in America is under tension, as data centers and AI chatbots consume power faster than new factories can be built. Electricity bills should increase by more than 20% in 13 states – from Illinois to Tennessee, Virginia, New Jersey – serving 67 million customers in a region withThe most data centers in the world .

The United States also suffers from an aging infrastructure. In a 2023 report entitledElectricity grides and secure energy transitionsThe International Energy Agency found that more than 90% of American power supply interruptions come from the distribution network.

American public services “began to invest in the network with a new sense of emergency,” reports Corniex, a company specializing in research on the electricity network. In California, Pacific Gas and Electricity contracted a federal guaranteed loan of $ 15 billion and, in New York, proposed an investment plan of $ 21 billion over three years. Duke Energy increases capital spending by almost 14% to $ 83 billion.

Tensions are assembly Who should pay on. Public services wish to lock technological companies in long -term contracts. Technological companies say they should not be forced to pay a premium for investments that also help consumers.

Europe has similar tensions. The abundance of energy in certain regions is blocked in digital demand centers, network upgrades are lagging behind investment needs and permits for renewable energies and data centers remain painfully slow. Without synchronizing energy, the deployment of the network and calculation, Europe is likely to be delayed; Not for lack of ambition, but for lack of alignment.

The continent’s calculation trajectory is dark. During the next five years, the electricity demand from the European data center should increase by more than 85 terawattheuresTriple of 10 GW today at 35 GW. It is not only a question of energy production. The problem is structural. The AI models require a dense and uninterrupted calculation, demanding countless coherent load megawatts. Current national energy systems have not been built for such industrial intensity. The grid interconnections are overloaded.

The shortages already appear. In Ireland, the operator of the grid imposed A moratorium on new data centers until 2028 after consuming more than 20% of the country’s total electricity.

The ambitions of clean energy in Europe are ill -aligned by its needs for digital infrastructure. Nuclear programs have faced delays and offshore wind capacity remains insufficient to meet the planned demand. Even when renewable energies are available, network and transmission constraints often prevent it from reaching industrial clusters where AI data centers work.

A proposed Baltic ai gigafactory Covering Poland, Lithuania and Estonia, illustrates the paradox. Although the project promises peak, a sovereign calculation capacity, it remains disconnected from a sovereign energy foundation. None of the host countries can still guarantee an uninterrupted and controlled supply at the level of electricity specific to the scale required by the new generation AI infrastructure. Poland’s grid remains depends on fossil fuels and cross -border balancing. Lithuania and Estonia, although more advanced in renewable energies, always depend on the imports and inherited interconnections.

Nuclear energy represents the best chances of catching up. France, which already derives more than 60% of its nuclear energy electricity, is only well placed to offer stable carbon basic energy with low carbon content for AI clusters. The major EDF in French electricity does not waste time Puris AI innovators with its “clean” energy. In doing so, he actively explores Power plant As part of a broader strategy to link industrial decarbonization with digital competitiveness

Nuclear also has a potential rebirth in the United States. Oklo And Microsoft Experience the association of small modular reactors

Some lessons can be taken from the north. The Nordic undoubtedly offers the most robust electricity network in Europe: abundant clean energy, low prices, cold climate cooling and rationalized infrastructure have attractedMajor hyperscalers. However, their key challenge remains the physical distance of European population centers. Even with the upgrades of fibers, the Nordics remain dozens of markets from markets like Frankfurt or Paris, ideal for bulk training, but far from being optimal for video streaming or interactive applications.

Outside the European Union, Moldova surprisingly shows what agility can look like. With 65% of government services already digitized, the country is aligned not only with EU cybersecurity standards, but also pilotingAn energy tank law in real time which allows you to test the IoT-based systems and AI-Grid interactions under living conditions. For a country with limited resources, it is not only catching up. This is the jump.

Europe does not need abstract principles. It needs zoning, authorization and pricing mechanisms that prioritize data centers where clean energy is abundant. It needs a modular flexibility of the grid, with storage of batteries, integration of microrals and platforms of response to the demand in real time integrated in the design of the project. It needs incentives for thermal reuse to capture the huge thermal waste produced by calculation infrastructure. In Paris, a The data center now provides heat to public swimming pools. These ingenious developments should be the norm, no exception.

The digital future of the West will not be written alone in code. It will be shaped by substations, transmission lines and electricity flows in real time. To fill the gap, the United States and Europe should start by identifying strategic areas where their own and reliable power can support the growth of the data center. It should align the financing of the expansion of the network with these areas and prioritize cross -border interconnections which reduce local bottlenecks. The permit must be rationalized for projects that combine data infrastructure with renewable energies on site, batteries storage and heat recovery systems. In short, the United States and Europe must deal with AI as an industrial political challenge.

Maciej Filip Bukowskiis the head of the energy and resilience program of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation in Warsaw, a non -resident scholarship holder of the technology policy program to analyze the Center for European Center.

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