Nvidia’s and OpenAI’s ‘monumental’ data center plan has an equally massive problem: Where to find the power
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC this week that the chipmaker’s AI infrastructure plan with OpenAI is “monumental in size.” Their plan is so big that it will push the boundaries of what is possible. The chipmaker and the AI lab are aiming to build at least 10 gigawatts of data centers. This will sap a massive amount of power at a time when the electric grid is already strained . Attempts to deploy more power have faced economic and political constraints that make a fast fix unlikely. Ten gigawatts is roughly equivalent to the annual power consumption of 8 million U.S. households, according to a CNBC analysis of data from the Energy Information Administration. It is about the same amount of power as New York City’s baseline peak summer demand in 2024, according to the New York Independent System Operator , the state electric grid. “There’s never been an engineering project, a technical project of this complexity and this scale — ever,” Huang told CNBC on Monday. Nvidia and OpenAI have provided no information on when and where the sites will be built, other than disclosing that the first gigawatt will come online in the second half of 2026. When CNBC reached out for more detail on Tuesday, Nvidia declined to comment. It’s unclear where all the electricity that the companies need will come from. The U.S. is forecast to add 63 gigawatts of power to the grid this year, according to EIA data . Nivida’s and OpenAI’s 10 gigawatts of data centers are equivalent to a big chunk, 16%, of the new power that will be deployed in 2025. The Trump administration is pushing for data centers to use fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, but orders for new gas turbines face long wait times with GE Vernova sold out through 2028. The U.S. is forecast to add just 4.4 gigawatts of new gas generation this year, according to EIA. The tech sector and the White House are working to build new nuclear plants, but it will take years for reactors to connect to the grid. The recent big expansion at Plant Vogtle in Georgia took more than a decade to complete. And the small advanced reactors backed by the tech sector are not expected to reach a commercial stage until the end of the decade at earliest. This leaves renewable power as the most viable, quickly deployable source of electricity to meet the demand from Nvidia and OpenAI in the near term. More than 90% of the new power that the U.S. is expected to add this year will come from solar, wind or battery storage, according to EIA. “The power requirement is largely going to be coming from the new energy sector or not at all,” said Kevin Smith, CEO of Arevon, a solar and battery storage developer headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, that’s active in 17 states. But the White House has effectively declared war on renewable power. President Donald Trump said last month that the federal government will not approve any more solar and wind . Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s office is now reviewing all permits for solar and wind projects. Even projects on private land could be hampered by the Trump administration as such efforts often need permits from federal agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Trump’s tariffs, uncertainty over permitting, and the end of key tax credits will lead to a slowdown in renewable deployment in the coming years that could challenge data center deployment, Smith and executives at other big renewable developers warned CNBC last month . “The panic in the data center, AI world is probably not going to set in for another 12 months or so, when they start realizing that they can’t get the power they need in some of these areas where they’re planning to build data centers,” Smith told CNBC in August. “Then we’ll see what happens,” Smith said. “There may be a reversal in policy to try and build whatever we can and get power onto the grid.”
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