The artificial intelligence revolution isn't just about software and algorithms—it's about power plants, transmission lines, and massive amounts of electricity that may arrive faster than the grid can handle. Powering the AI Boom, a new report published June 17, 2026, by the Goldwater Institute and authored by Domenico Ferraro, PhD, Associate Professor at Arizona State University, argues that the United States has the capacity to meet surging AI energy demands—but only if policymakers remove barriers fast enough to let infrastructure keep pace with technology.
The timing mismatch is stark. A large data center can be planned and built within two or three years, but the infrastructure needed to serve it may take much longer. Utility-scale solar projects and simple-cycle natural gas turbines can sometimes move relatively quickly, but larger transmission upgrades, geothermal projects, combined-cycle natural gas plants, hydropower facilities, and nuclear plants can take years to permit, finance, and complete. Some new data centers will consume hundreds of megawatts of power—not the electricity demand of a typical office park, but the demand of a major industrial project. The United States already serves nearly four trillion kilowatt-hours in annual electricity sales from a diverse power system built on natural gas as the largest source, nuclear power as a stable foundation, and rapidly expanded wind and solar over the past decade.
According to Ferraro, "the policy question is not whether to accommodate the AI boom, but how to get the next increment of power generation, transmission, and local grid capacity operational on a timeline consistent with demand growth and at a manageable cost." The report finds that the United States may have enough electricity in the aggregate while still struggling to deliver enough power in the places where data centers are actually built. If several major projects arrive in the same region at once, the local utility may need a new substation, additional transmission capacity, and more dependable generation. The report explains that "the technologies that need electricity can often arrive faster than the infrastructure needed to serve them."
The real pressure will emerge at the local level, where a national conversation about AI quickly becomes a regional debate about whether the grid can keep up and who pays for upgrades. The report argues that America has adapted to major electricity demand increases before—industrial growth, suburban expansion, air conditioning, and earlier technological revolutions all forced the power system to expand. The country didn't respond by trying to prevent households from buying appliances or businesses from opening factories; it invested in infrastructure to support economic growth. The same approach is needed now, but building more infrastructure requires clearer rules. Energy projects require large upfront investments and years of planning, and utilities, developers, and investors need to know how long approvals will take, who will pay for necessary upgrades, and whether regulators will allow reasonable costs to be recovered. Uncertainty makes projects more expensive and delays investment precisely when speed matters most.
The report lays out a phased strategy. In the near term, utilities and regulators should focus on projects that can move fastest: targeted substation improvements, targeted transmission upgrades, faster interconnection reviews, solar paired with storage, and additional natural gas generation where appropriate. Over the medium term, larger investments in transmission, geothermal energy, and dependable power sources will be needed. Over the longer term, nuclear energy—including small modular reactors—could become an increasingly important part of the answer. The report also calls for large data center developers to make meaningful commitments before ordinary ratepayers shoulder the risk, including long-term contracts, phased construction plans, and cost-sharing agreements. America has the resources. The question is whether policymakers will remove the barriers fast enough to use them.