In the last two decades big tech companies such as Meta, Apple and Alphabet (Google) have been racing to construct data centers across the country to keep up with the burgeoning demand for such services. More recently, the advent of AI has accelerated demand for data storage, and their pace of construction has intensified. Data centers are energy-intensive endeavors, and need reliable energy at all hours of the day and night.
In some markets--most notably Northern Virginia, where the nation’s security agencies critically depend on AI--data centers consume a significant proportion of their region’s energy consumption. In Northern Virginia and elsewhere, the supply of energy has not been able to keep pace with the demand, and prices are beginning to increase because of this.
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