Artificial Intelligence is a power-hungry technology.
It’s estimated that AI data centers across the globe will need an additional 14 gigawatts of new power by 2030.
For perspective, one gigawatt could power roughly 800,000 homes.
The immense power needs of AI technology — like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini — have grown so fast that Utah lawmakers are fearful of keeping up.
“This world seems to be moving very, very fast,” Republican Rep. Steven Lund said during a Nov. 20 interim session of the Legislature.
State leaders announced Operation Gigawatt in October in response to the looming demand. The goal is to double the state’s power generation capacity in the next 10 years. Gov. Spencer Cox called the initiative “critical to preserving our quality of life and ensuring strong economic growth.”
Rocky Mountain Power President Dick Garlish believes his company is up to that task, but told lawmakers that cost could get in the way.
“They're asking for investments and infrastructure that's beyond what our regular customers need. We want to be mindful of the affordability part of that.”
Still, Lund expressed skepticism about the utility’s ability to rise to the challenge.
“Of course, you can build it,” he said. “But I don't think you can move fast enough.”
The deputy director of the Utah Office of Energy Development, Harry Hansen, said the state’s current energy demand hovers around the four- to five-gigawatt mark.
“Some of these data centers with artificial intelligence will go after one to three gigawatts of power,” he said. “We're talking not just entire companies, we're talking entire economies’ worth of energy that these facilities are going to need.”
The rapid growth of AI has presented an interesting problem for the energy industry. It’s not that building capacity to produce more gigawatts isn’t possible, the technology and know-how exist. As Hansen explained, it’s that “the difficulty with that is they want it right now.”
Many Utah lawmakers also see federal permitting requirements as another major obstacle.
“It's that there's all these processes and pieces that just need to fit together just perfectly so, and even when they fit together perfectly,” Hansen said. “So we still have a hard time trying to provide that service in that amount of time.”
Regardless of whether future data centers get built in Utah, the state will likely feel the effects of that increased power load because it’s part of the Western Interconnection grid. The grid covers nearly the entire western United States and Canada and transmits power from generation facilities to homes and businesses.
That’s why Hansen said Utah leaders are so focused on shaping the conversation around AI and power generation.
“[If a data center is] in Utah, you obviously have a little bit more of a direct footprint, but the effects of that on the grid as a whole is going to be felt,” he said. “So Utah has an interest in having a say at how this is done so we can do it properly to protect the consumers.”
Looking ahead, legislative leaders have indicated that energy will once again be a top priority in 2025. Senate President Stuart Adams told reporters at a Nov. 7 news conference that “the country who controls AI is going to control the world.”
“If we can't light up the data centers, these brilliant scientists we have that are developing this AI technology, it’s for naught, because they can't do anything,” he said.
