artificial intelligence
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Interview
The POWER Interview: Investing in Energy Solutions for the Data Center Boom
The race to lead when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more about securing the power necessary for data centers and other AI infrastructure. In this POWER Interview, Andrejka Bernatova, founder, chairman, and CEO of Dynamix Capital Partners, discusses Dynamix’s belief that the energy and infrastructure industry is in the early phases of a decades-long transition to a low-carbon, sustainable future.
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Commentary
Power Generation in the Age of AI: Year-End 2025 Outlook
In early 2020, the prevailing narrative in the power sector was a continuation story of the developments from the decade before: renewable buildout will keep compounding, thermal capacity will keep retiring (albeit at a slower rate), markets will evolve to compensate for flexible generation products, capital will keep moving earlier in the development value chain […]
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Commentary
The Long Arc of Efficiency: What Refrigerators Teach Us About the Future of AI Data Centers
As AI demand accelerates, the race is on to bend the power curve before it bends the grid. The first electric refrigerators were mechanical curiosities—loud, bulky appliances that consumed staggering amounts of electricity. But they spread anyway, because the productivity gains were too great to ignore. Daily habits shifted. Food systems reshaped. Household labor changed […]
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Commentary
Powering the AI Revolution: Why the Energy Race Is the AI Race
The power of U.S. innovation and market incentives cannot be underestimated. The convergence of a business-driven energy transition and the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI) have exposed a critical bottleneck within our energy grid.
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Commentary
The Five Layers of AI Safeguarding the Utility Industry
By utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, smart cybersecurity systems are helping to bolster the utility industry’s defenses. AI-powered cybersecurity is powerful because it enhances overall resilience to sophisticated cyber threats by providing real-time threat detection and response capabilities. And at a time when these threats are becoming more prolific and sophisticated, defenders need every advantage they can get.
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Data Centers
Data Centers and the Grid: Key Insights from POWER’s Inaugural Data Center POWER eXchange Summit
POWER breaks down the top insights from Data Center POWER eXchange, its unique one-day summit curated by POWER’s editorial team and convened to examine the collision between accelerating data center load and tightening grid constraints. The rise of artificial intelligence is poised to create the fastest, largest, and most concentrated surge of electricity demand in […]
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Coal
How AI Is Breathing New Life into Aging Coal-Fired Power Assets
For years, some folks have considered coal-fired power plants relics of a bygone era, overshadowed by the rise of natural gas and renewables. Yet, in an unexpected twist, coal is finding its way back into the
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Nuclear
Power Play: Takeaways from Westinghouse, Google AI Partnership
Westinghouse has partnered with Google Cloud to develop a custom AI-powered platform using specialized models from both Google and Westinghouse—itself a leader in AI for energy production—that helps optimize and accelerate reactor construction.
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Interview
POWER Interview: CyrusOne Expert on How AI Is Reshaping the Data Center–Utility Relationship
CyrusOne’s Jim Roche details how AI-driven workloads, high-density racks, and liquid cooling are transforming the data center–utility relationship. Only a decade ago, few in the power sector could have predicted that the digital economy’s engine—the data center—would become a central concern for utility planners, grid operators, and energy policymakers. For much of its history, data […]
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Power
How Artificial Intelligence Can Unlock the Next Level of Energy Flexibility
Flexibility has become a defining characteristic of the future of our energy system. As distributed energy resources surge, electric vehicles (EVs) proliferate, and demand patterns shift, the ability to manage demand in real time is as critical as our capacity to generate. But achieving this level of adaptability requires more than just upgraded infrastructure; it […]
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Commentary
Frugal AI’s Energy Reckoning: Why Efficiency Isn’t Enough
The story of artificial intelligence (AI) is often told in the language of speed and efficiency. Every quarter brings claims of models that run faster and cost less. Yet behind the glossy benchmarks lies a more sobering truth: the appetite for AI is growing so quickly that even the most impressive efficiency gains cannot keep […]
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Data Centers
Power Quality in the AI Era: Solving for Subharmonics
Data center operators are keenly aware that securing access to the grid is job number one on their to-do list. But the extraordinary demand placed on the grid by artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) has another concern rapidly ascending the list: power quality. While data centers running traditional workloads have largely solved for […]
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T&D
AI’s Growing Appetite: What the Grid Needs to Keep Up
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just transforming industries; it is also transforming the energy grid. Behind every AI breakthrough lies a massive surge in computing power, and with it, an unprecedented demand for reliable and affordable electricity. As the U.S. positions itself for continued technological leadership, meeting the energy needs of AI data […]
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Commentary
Bridging the AI Gap for Energy Utilities
The energy industry is in a bit of a technological whirlwind. Climate-related disruption and shifting adaptation requirements inject alarming levels of uncertainty into traditional business models, while a surge in amazing engineering breakthroughs and innovations simultaneously present irresistible opportunities for enhanced efficacy and resilience.
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Data Centers
Oracle Taps VoltaGrid for 2.3-GW Modular Gas Fleet to Power AI Data Centers Across Texas
Texas-based rapid-deployment power specialist VoltaGrid will deploy 2,300 MW of modular, ultra-low-emissions natural gas generation to support Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s (OCI’s) artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, backed by firm fuel from Energy Transfer’s 140,000-mile pipeline and storage network. Under the collaboration announced Oct. 15, VoltaGrid said its proprietary modular platform—featuring INNIO Jenbacher reciprocating engines and […]
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Nuclear
Amazon Unveils ‘Cascade’—Energy Northwest’s Xe-100 SMR Project, Targeting Construction by 2030
Amazon has unveiled detailed plans and renderings for the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, an initial 320-MW small modular reactor (SMR) complex that will serve as the first major project in its broader 5-GW nuclear partnership with advanced reactor developer X-energy, announced last year. The project will be owned, built, and operated by Energy Northwest just […]
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Commentary
Energy: The Most Critical 7% of America’s GDP
The true engine of America’s economy might surprise you. It’s not tech. It’s not artificial intelligence, finance, or manufacturing. It’s energy. Energy accounts for just 7% of America’s gross domestic product (GDP), but, as former FERC Chair Mark Christie put it, “it’s the foundational 7% … everything else in our economy and lifestyle flows from it.”
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Commentary
AI’s Energy Hunger Demands an All-of-the-Above Strategy
Here’s a fundamental truth: there is no AI without energy. And as the technology grows, its demand for energy, and carbon footprint, may never again be as small as it is today. Against this backdrop, debates over which energy source should power AI miss the point. AI’s appetite for energy—relative to what the grid has […]
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Trends
POWER Digest [October 2025]
Two business conglomerates with interests across Asia announced a partnership to build six geothermal power plants in Indonesia.
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Legal & Regulatory
FERC Acts on Four Reliability Standards, Probes AI and Data Center Load Forecasting
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Sept. 18 advanced four reliability measures for the U.S. bulk power system (BPS), formalizing frameworks around supply chain risk, cloud computing and virtual infrastructure, cybersecurity, and extreme cold weather preparedness. The commission finalized a new supply chain risk management rule—effective in 60 days—that expands protections against vulnerabilities stemming […]
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Trends
Soluna Breaks Ground on 166-MW Texas Wind-Powered Data Center for Crypto and AI
Soluna Holdings, a developer of data centers powered by renewables, is set to break ground on Project Kati, a 166-MW wind-powered data center campus poised to support Bitcoin hosting and the rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure. The project, a partnership with EDF Renewables, Masdar, and Spring Lane Capital, […]
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Gas
Blackstone Acquires Gas-Fired Plant in Pennsylvania in $1 Billion Deal
Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, said its energy-focused private equity business has a deal to buy the 620-MW natural gas-fired Hill Top Energy Center in Pennsylvania. The agreement announced September 15 will see Blackstone Energy Transition Partners acquire the power station from Ardian, a global private investment firm. Blackstone officials said the purchase […]
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Commentary
How Innovation in Nuclear Power Projects is Rewriting the Business Energy Playbook
Global energy demand is accelerating, and organizations are increasingly turning to nuclear power to secure stable, long-term electricity supplies. Advances in AI, modular design, and predictive analytics are helping overcome legacy hurdles of cost, complexity, and schedule, while business leaders shift capital toward projects that prioritize resilience as much as efficiency.
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Trends
Why Power Plants Need AI That Engineers Can Trust
America’s power producers face growing pressure to do more with less. A rapidly evolving grid, increasing demand, aging infrastructure, and policy uncertainty have created a system where traditional approaches to reliability are no longer enough. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) recently issued its 2025 RISC report, highlighting the leading risks facing America’s power […]
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data centers
NRC Accepts COLA for Fermi America’s Behemoth Four-Unit AP1000 Nuclear Plant in Texas
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has accepted for review initial portions of a combined license application (COLA) from Dallas-based Fermi America to build and operate four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors in Carson County, Texas. The proposed project—which will be called the “President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus” (also known as Project Matador)—is slated […]
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Energy Storage
Preparing Energy Storage Technology to Support Data Center Power Demands
The increasing power demands of data centers are adding urgency to grid resiliency and renewable energy projects. Data center electricity use is expected to grow 300% by 2035 as hyperscale cloud computing companies race to adopt new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). Renewable energy and microgrid solutions will play an essential role in the digitalized and electrified future.
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Data Centers
Managing AI’s Heat: Advanced Liquid Cooling Systems and the Instrumentation That Supports Them
Efficient liquid cooling supported by reliable instrumentation is essential for data centers to handle increased capacity demands in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and other heavy compute applications. The landscape of data processing has undergone a seismic shift recently, with today’s artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications requiring computational power at a […]
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Data Centers
Pacifico Energy Building Massive Gas, Energy Storage Project to Serve Texas Data Centers
An energy infrastructure company said it’s moving forward with the GW Ranch project, an off-grid complex in Texas that will combine natural gas-fired generation and battery energy storage to provide nearly 7 GW of power in Pecos County. The campus, sited on more than 8,000 acres, is designed “to support hyperscale data centers and the […]
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Trends
AI and the Energy Transition: Building a Smarter, Decarbonized Energy System
Solar energy generation from a rooftop panel system can be monitored quickly and easily, an example of how artificial intelligence (AI) and digital tools are empowering businesses to optimize energy use and contribute to a decentralized, decarbonized grid. The energy transition is accelerating. Electrification is surging, renewable power generation is expanding and energy consumption patterns […]
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Commentary
Transforming Energy Finance Through AI-Driven Processes
The power and utility sector underpins every part of modern life, from residential comfort to industrial productivity. Yet, as the global energy landscape evolves, so must the internal operations that keep these organizations running. COMMENTARY With total U.S. power use expected to reach around 4,189 billion kWh in 2025, and 4,278 billion kWh in 2026, […]