Artificial intelligence companies are having trouble finding enough power to juice their data centers, so they’re building their own power plants, according to Jennifer Hiller in The Wall Street Journal. She writes:

With the push for AI dominance at warp speed, the “Bring Your Own Power” boom is a quick fix for the gridlock of trying to get on the grid. It’s driving an energy Wild West that is reshaping American power.

Most tech titans would be happy to trade their DIY sourcing for the ability to plug into the electric grid. But supply-chain snarls and permitting challenges are complicating everything, and the U.S. isn’t building transmission infrastructure or power plants fast enough to meet the sudden surge in demand for electricity.

America should be adding about 80 gigawatts of new power generation capacity a year to keep pace with AI as well as cloud computing, crypto, industrial demand and electrification trends, according to consulting and technology firm ICF. It’s currently building less than 65 gigawatts. That gap alone is enough electricity to power two Manhattans during the hottest parts of summer.

Data centers have long taken power for granted, said KR Sridhar, founder and chief executive of Bloom Energy, which provides fuel cells to companies that need on-site power, often in a hurry. “You build the data center. Well, you just plug it in.”

That isn’t possible anymore given the city-sized amounts of electricity needed to train AI models. One data center can devour as much electricity as 1,000 Walmart stores, and an AI search can use 10 times the amount of energy as a google search.

Read more here.