The growing demand of ai? or the growing demand for ai?

Artificial Intelligence, AI, seems to be everywhere in the United States and continues to grow both publicly and privately. Statista, reports that AI is expected to have an annual growth rate of 26.95% and become the largest market size in the US. In fact, AI has grown so much that a survey from Elon (not Musk) University has found that over 52% of adults use a large language model such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, etc. in their daily lives.

The demand of AI by everyday Americans seems to be growing and will likely continue to increase throughout the decade. This is simply the reality of our nation and one that we must be prepared for. Yet, one must not forget to ask: What exactly is the growing demand for AI? Are we, as a country, prepared for that?

Projections, from the International Energy Agency (IEA), have shown that AI worldwide will have electricity demand due to data centers doubling to around 945 TWh by the end of the decade. From the US alone, we can see that AI is expected to have 88 TWh of electricity demand growth by 2030. 

As a good American, of course, we need to put this in terms we can understand. If we had all 30 NFL stadiums (even though there are 32 teams) powered on, for approximately 5 hours, and using their peak consumption of 10 MW we obtain 50 MWh per stadium. Or simply put, 1500 MWh from all 30 stadiums powered simultaneously for 5 hours. 

This equates to 58,667 games occurring at the same time to power the future AI data centers of the nation by 2030. Or taking the 272 games in a season, the electricity demand for the data centers by 2030 would result in ~215 seasons of NFL football, by powering every single game in each of those seasons. The Broncos, and maybe even the Cowboys, will have to have won a Superbowl by then, right?

Regardless of who the Superbowl champions will be for the next 215 seasons, there needs to be a solution that will cover the electricity demand of these data centers. As demand will continue to grow, surely the supply of electricity production must grow alongside it? Well cutting supplies, incentives, resources, and accessibility for energy production methods- like wind and solar energy production- certainly isn’t going to do it. 

America is facing and will be facing an energy crisis for much of the near future. Whether we admit it or not it is the responsibility of American citizens and an issue that we must hold our leaders accountable for. America needs to continue to produce energy, in both renewable and “traditional” methods, in order to meet the demand for AI. Action is needed and we must continue to fight for energy production methods. The United States of America needs to not take a step backwards, but instead be prepared to step forward into the future of AI in our contemporary world.