Artificial intelligence helps drive new energy sources

Artificial intelligence and data centers have been blamed for rising electricity costs across the United States. In December 2025, American consumers paid 42% more to power their homes than they did ten years ago.

“When there’s increased demand and inadequate supply, costs are going to go up. And that’s what we’re experiencing now,” said Exelon CEO Calvin Butler.

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In 2024, US data centers used more than 4% of total US electricity consumption according to the International Energy Agency. That’s equivalent to as much electricity as the entire nation of Pakistan uses annually. Data center consumption in the US is expected to grow 133% by the end of the decade, using as much energy as the entire country of France.

“We are headquartered in Chicago and own ComEd, the fourth largest utility in the country. ComEd’s peak load is about 23 gigawatts. We have had a data center load on the system, but by 2030, we will be at 19 gigawatts,” Butler said.

Commonwealth Edison has seen a dramatic increase in data center connection requests. The potential projects total more than 30 gigawatts and are expected to come online by 2045.

“Our growth is unprecedented in recent decades. So with the advent of data centers and technology, we have been forced to address that load, which is our responsibility,” Butler said. “But what we also have to do is build a new generation supply, which is not up to the load that is coming. And that is the crisis we are in now.”

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Commonwealth Edison is asking regulators for a $15.3 billion grid upgrade over 4 years to meet growing demand. Overall, the United States has increased its grid capacity by more than 15% over the past decade, but many utilities and energy producers say it is not enough.

“We’re at a stage where we’re limited by electricity,” said Commonwealth Fusion Systems CEO Bob Mumgaard. “You want to build power plants that can generate a lot of power in a small package that you can put anywhere, that you can operate at any time, and fusion meets those requirements.”

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is working to add a new form of nuclear energy to the grid: fusion. It has the same reliable benefits as the standard nuclear energy already used, but does not produce long-lived radioactive waste and carries fewer risks.

“In fusion there is no chain reaction. The result is helium, which is safe and inert and is not used to make anything weapons-related,” Mumgaard said.

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Commonwealth Fusion Systems says artificial intelligence is helping to bring fusion energy closer to being a new resource.

“Building and designing these complex machines and manipulating this complex plasma-related data are things that we’re still learning and we’re still figuring out how to do it,” Mumgaard said. “And that is an area where we have been able to accelerate the use of AI”

Other underutilized energy sources could soon get a big boost thanks to AI. Geothermal energy is a small part of the electrical grid, due to high drilling costs and little confidence about where to locate infrastructure.

“If you could drill the perfect geothermal well every time, picking the right location, designing the right well, drilling the 5,000, 8,000 feet, hitting temperatures of 400°F, that’s incredibly productive,” said Zanskar co-founder Joel Edwards. “If you could do that over and over again, geothermal energy would be the cheapest energy source.”

Zanskar is working to make geothermal search more precise. The company uses AI-powered maps to find untapped resources that were previously considered non-existent.

“If we could be more precise about where we’re going to find things and how to drill them, geothermal absolutely has the cost curve to go down,” Edwards said. “And that’s what we’re heading towards, with AI kind of driving us forward, giving us an advantage to do that.”

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Both geothermal and nuclear fusion can produce power in any weather and at any time, a component that could have helped ease strain on the grid amid the recent winter storm.

“It’s critical, and we’ve been raising that alarm for years, and I use the analogy that you’re driving a car and the check engine light is on, but you keep driving it, hoping to get there and keep going, but when it breaks down, you’re going to have a significantly higher cost,” Butler said. “We have to pay attention to what’s happening, and this winter storm, Winter Storm Fern, is indicative of what’s coming.”