President Donald Trump presented the World Economic Forum with his desire to power the U.S. AI revolution: behind-the-meter generation co-located with data centers and built rapidly under his National Energy Emergency executive order.

President Trump's executive orders on energy are not enough on their own for the industry to meet the rising demand for AI and data centers, and experts say another attempt at permitting reform is needed.

The data center dilemma centers first on a familiar mismatch of timescales. Utilities and their regulators tend to plan based on the small, incremental demand growth. But development and the power demand it generates move at ever-increasing digital speed.

"Deep, collaborative partnerships combined with creative problem-solving are the only way we can meet the explosion of AI growth, as well as society's accelerating electricity demand," said Sheldon Kimber, CEO of Intersect Power.

Clean industry executives and experts at DOE's Deploy 2024 conference were surprisingly optimistic about continuing market growth linked to the boom in energy demand from data centers, AI and electrification.

The Louisiana PSC has taken first steps to consider Entergy’s request to power a proposed $5 billion AI data center in north Louisiana with $3.2 billion in mostly natural gas generation.

"Chicken Little" claims about power outages being caused by the transmission grid being overtaxed do not stand up to scrutiny, says columnist Steve Huntoon.

If data centers are connected to the grid they should contribute to the cost of the network infrastructure providing those services, Exelon Executive Colette Honorable said.