Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Saturday, December 20th. Today on Forbes, why America's

power grid will be able to withstand the $2.5 trillion AI data center building boom. Between now and

2030, the giants of AI, like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta,

aimed to more than double the computing power dedicated to growing and operating their

non-human minds.

They currently use about 40 gigawatts of power, enough for 30 million homes.

The cost of this ambition will be astronomical. about $50 billion per gigawatt of computing

power built for a total of $2.5 trillion over the next five years alone.

Roughly 80% of that will go to buy GPUs made by the likes of Nvidia and AMD. The rest, some $500 billion, will provide the

energy via new power plants and transmission lines. At the trajectory these hyperscalers are on,

Goldman Sachs figures that by 2030, American data centers will consume 500 terawatt hours per year, more than 10% of total

domestic electricity. Zach Krause, an analyst at East Daily, a Denver Energy consultancy,

says, quote, I think we should already be raising the alarm on the potential for facilities

to complete construction, but be without

power in 2028 and 29. I hope they don't march into a wall. Some already have. In Oregon, Amazon

Data Services has filed a complaint against Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, Pacific Corp, which has refused

to provide power

to energize some of Amazon's $30 billion in data center investments there.

In Santa Clara, California, two 50 megawatts centers developed by digital realty and stack

infrastructure are ready to go, but can't get electricity until Silicon Valley power completes $450 million

in grid upgrades, not expected until 2028 or later. Faced with new demand for 30 gigawatts

of power, utility AES in Ohio told developers they had to enter into long-term contracts to buy 85% of the power they

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