By Robert Rapier
Publication Date: 2026-02-19 11:00:00
The cooling towers at Crane Clean Energy Center, previously known as Three Mile Island, can be seen from across the Susquehanna River on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024 in Middletown, PA. The two towers on the left, Unit 2, will not be reopened for operations after the partial meltdown happened there in 1979. (Photos by Wesley Lapointe for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Washington Post via Getty Images
For years, Silicon Valley took electricity for granted. The cloud sounded intangible, almost detached from the physical world. But now, artificial intelligence is ending that illusion. Behind every large language model and AI assistant sits a growing fleet of data centers that require enormous and continuous amounts of power.
Industry analysts estimate that a single hyperscale AI data center can demand 300 to 500 megawatts of electricity, comparable to the consumption of a mid-sized city. Multiply that across dozens of facilities under construction, and energy supply becomes less of…
