Goldman Sachs warns datacentre power doubles

Goldman Sachs said on May 20 that U.S. datacentre power demand is forecast to more than double to 66 gigawatts in 2027 from 31 gigawatts in 2025, as AI infrastructure drives a new wave of construction. The bank’s commodities research team said demand would rise to 41 GW in 2026 before the larger jump the following year. Goldman Sachs also said datacentres’ share of total U.S. peak summer power demand is projected to increase to 8.5% in 2027 from 4.1% in 2025. (goldmansachs.com) That forecast matters because the constraint is no longer only chips, servers or buildings. (wral.com) Goldman Sachs said regional electricity markets will feel the effects unevenly, with the Mid-Atlantic, Mid-Continent and Northwest facing elevated reliability risks, while Texas and Georgia may see a more limited effect because of planned new generation. ### Where does Goldman Sachs think the bottleneck is? Goldman Sachs based its forecast on U.S. datacentre capacity reaching roughly 95 GW by the end of 2027, more than double the level at the end of 2025, assuming a 70% utilization rate. (goldmansachs.com) The bank said year-over-year capacity additions are scheduled to reach 13.6 GW in 2026 and 36.3 GW in 2027, compared with realized additions of 6.4 GW in 2024 and 8.5 GW in 2025. The bank also said only about 50% to 60% of capacity scheduled over the next one to two years is expected to come online on time because of delays and cancellations. (goldmansachs.com) That leaves operators, utilities and large users planning around a market where announced supply is not the same as usable supply. ### Why are state lawmakers getting involved already? North Carolina lawmakers are expected to propose legislation that would place new requirements on datacentre developers, set rules on water use and address ownership as AI-driven demand strains the state’s power grid, WRAL reported this week. (goldmansachs.com) The report said legislators were moving as communities and utilities grapple with the cost of rapid datacentre expansion. WRAL has separately reported that proposed North Carolina legislation would require datacentres to cover more of their energy costs and generate some of their own clean power. (goldmansachs.com) Governor Josh Stein said last month that datacentres were partly to blame for rising energy prices in the state and questioned why taxpayers should subsidize companies that were also driving up bills. ### Which regions look most exposed? Goldman Sachs said the Mid-Atlantic, Mid-Continent and Northwest power markets face the highest reliability risks from the datacentre buildout. (wral.com) Texas and Georgia were described as relatively less exposed because of additional planned generation. That regional split is important for companies deciding where to place new workloads. Goldman Sachs’ forecast points to power availability becoming a more explicit input into siting decisions, alongside land, fiber access, tax treatment and permitting. This is an inference drawn from the bank’s regional reliability analysis and capacity-delay forecast. (wral.com) ### What does this change for large-scale computing? Goldman Sachs said AI is the driver of the acceleration, and its forecast assumes a much larger installed base of datacentre capacity by 2027. (goldmansachs.com) The bank’s earlier research has also projected a broader rise in datacentre electricity use through the end of the decade, linking the increase to AI workloads and higher power density requirements. For operators of large-scale services, that means power constraints are moving into routine capacity planning. The next markers will come from statehouses such as North Carolina’s legislature and from whether scheduled datacentre capacity in 2026 and 2027 actually arrives on time. (goldmansachs.com) (wral.com)