The race
AI runs on power, steel and land.
Every model needs data centers, and every data center needs electricity. U.S. data centers used 4.4 percent of the nation’s electricity in 2023 and could use as much as 12 percent by 2028. The chips are the easy part. The hard part is building the places they run.
The gap
430 GW
of new power capacity China added in a single year, 2024
49 GW
the United States added the same year
$286B
of U.S. data center projects stopped or delayed by local opposition in fifteen months
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy, December 2024 · China National Energy Administration, via Enerdata · U.S. Energy Information Administration, February 2025 · Data Center Watch, 2025 through Q1 2026
The difference
Our rivals build by decree. America builds by consent.
That is our strength. A project that a town chose is a project that lasts. But right now consent is also our bottleneck: only 14 percent of Americans would welcome a data center in their own community, and the hearings are getting longer.
America does not need to build like anyone else. It needs to build in a way its towns can say yes to.