Executives from leading technology companies recently gathered in Oklahoma City to discuss the increasing energy demands associated with artificial intelligence (AI). The conference, organized by the Hamm Institute, focused on how the United States can effectively address these growing energy requirements.
Among those speaking at the event was Miller, who commented on the current state of Amazon’s plans regarding AI data centers. He noted, “there’s been little tea leaf reading and extrapolating to strange results,” suggesting that projections about demand may not accurately reflect the ongoing realities of energy needs.
Miller emphasized the sustained demand for energy as it relates to AI innovations, stating, “we continue to see very strong demand, and we’re looking both in the next couple of years as well as long term and seeing the numbers only going up.” This feeling is representative of a larger reality found across the industry, where AI companies are rapidly scaling their operational needs.
Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic, spoke to the urgent need for more power capacity as well. He predicted that by 2027, the AI industry will need up to 50 gigawatts of new electricity capacity. To put this in perspective, this demand is the equivalent output of about 50 new nuclear plants. Clark characterized that growth as “unprecedented.” He underlined the critical demand for new baseload power to feed the significantly growing AI ecosystem.
In addition, Parker echoed Miller’s comments by mentioning how “we’re still not seeing a slowdown” of demand. Yet, despite these ups and downs in market sentiments, there is an underlying optimism for continued growth in the sector. This is most acutely felt by the recent rise of China’s AI startup DeepSeek, which a few months ago sparked a sellout in power stocks. Investors had expressed concerns that DeepSeek’s more efficient AI model could lessen the energy requirements for data centers, but Miller reassured that “there’s been really no significant change” in energy needs.
The conversations happening at the grid conference point to a pivotal time on the collision course between advancing AI technology and the future of energy production. AI is very quickly developing and growing into all sectors of society. At the same time, the U.S. needs to make sure that it’s got adequate energy resources to fuel that growth.