A New Era Of Power Demand
INTRO
The U.S. is entering a new phase of electricity demand growth after two decades of near-stagnation. The combination of artificial intelligence and manufacturing reshoring is reshaping the national energy landscape. This transformation has significant implications for utilities, industrials, and energy producers. From 2005 to 2020, total electricity consumption barely increased (EIA 2025). The rise of AI data centers, electric vehicles (EVs), and domestic industrial expansion has lifted power usage nationwide (Deloitte 2025). The sectors best positioned to benefit (utilities, industrials, and energy) are already seeing steady capital inflows and earnings strength, and many investors are looking into the theme. We will first identify the sources of new power demand, then explore the investment opportunities in these areas, and finally assess some vulnerabilities.
DRIVERS OF POWER DEMAND
Artificial Intelligence and Data Centers
AI remains the single biggest driver of incremental electricity demand. Each AI model requires exponential computing power, and data centers hosting these systems are rapidly scaling. According to ConstructConnect, total U.S. data center construction starts reached $14.0 billion in July 2025, compared to just $682.0 million in July 2024, reflecting a massive year-over-year expansion. Deloitte reports that the proliferation of AI workloads is straining existing grid capacity, prompting large technology companies to contract long-term power supplies and invest in grid-scale generation. AI-driven data centers are also energy-intensive, with the smallest consuming ~18,000 gallons of water per day and the largest reaching 5 million. For context, each ChatGPT query uses around 0.34 watt-hours of electricity, and with over 122 million daily users on ChatGPT alone, plus many other AI tools, the energy burden is growing exponentially. From 2021 to 2024, the number of U.S. data centers doubled, and their power capacity is expanding even faster (ConstructConnect 2025). Statista data show that private-sector data center completions have increased every year since 2021, confirming that this buildout represents a sustained structural trend, not a short-term boom.
Manufacturing Reshoring
Reshoring (the process of returning the production and manufacturing of goods to the company's original country) is another major source of new power demand. Companies are moving production back to the U.S. to secure supply chains and cash in on billions in government incentives like the CHIPS Act. U.S. manufacturers are expanding production domestically after decades of offshoring, supported by new incentives and supply chain realignments. Valco Cleve reports that 69% of U.S. manufacturers are now reshoring or planning to reshore operations, with advanced manufacturing facilities (particularly chip fabrication and EV plants) among the largest new energy users. Federal Reserve data show consistent growth in private manufacturing construction spending, confirming that investment in energy-intensive industrial infrastructure is accelerating (FRED 2025). As reshoring continues, this trend reinforces long-term electricity consumption growth, particularly in regions like the Midwest and Northeast, where most large-scale plants are being built.
INVESTING IN POWER GENERATION: COMPANY OPPORTUNITIES
Utilities / Power Producers
Talen Energy (TLN)
In June 2025, Talen announced a 1,920 MW power purchase agreement (PPA) with Amazon Web Services to supply carbon-free electricity from its Susquehanna nuclear plant to AWS data centers in Pennsylvania (Talen Energy Corporation 2025). The agreement transitions the plant’s output to a “front-of-the-meter” structure and runs through 2042, with full delivery expected by 2032 (World Nuclear News 2025). Separately, Talen agreed to acquire two combined-cycle gas plants, Moxie Freedom (Pennsylvania) and Guernsey (Ohio), for about $3.5 billion net, adding nearly 3 GW of generation capacity and expanding its flexibility to serve large, continuous power loads (Reuters 2025). These projects strengthen Talen’s role as a diversified, high-capacity power producer positioned to benefit from the surge in AI-driven energy demand.
Constellation Energy (CEG)
Constellation is advancing its acquisition of Calpine Corporation in a deal valued at around $16.4 billion, expected to expand its generation portfolio across nuclear, natural gas, and renewable assets. The merger, approved by FERC under mitigation conditions, will broaden Constellation’s footprint to roughly 60 GW of generation capacity and is slated to close by late 2025 (Nasdaq/Zacks 2025). Constellation has also maintained strong relationships with corporate clients like Microsoft and Meta, providing nuclear-based clean energy through long-term power purchase agreements.
Industrials / Electrification Providers
GE Vernova (GEV)
Formed through GE’s 2024 energy spinoff, GE Vernova supplies grid infrastructure, gas turbines, and renewable power equipment. The company remains one of the top-performing industrial stocks in 2025, supported by strong demand for electrification and grid modernization projects across the U.S. and abroad (Nasdaq/Zacks 2025).
Energy / Natural Gas Producers
EQT Corporation (EQT)
EQT remains the largest U.S. natural gas producer and is strategically positioned to serve rising power demand from AI data centers and electrified manufacturing facilities. The company has increased firm gas supply commitments to Appalachian and Mid-Atlantic markets, ensuring stable throughput as electricity-driven consumption rises. In July 2025, EQT signed a long-term agreement to supply natural gas to a planned 2.7 GW gas-fired power and data center campus on the site of the retired Bruce Mansfield coal plant in western Pennsylvania (Weixel 2025). The project includes up to 800 MMcf/d of new natural gas capacity and an adjoining 2 GW hyperscale data center, highlighting EQT’s growing role in directly fueling AI-related infrastructure (Weixel 2025). This deal reflects the company’s strategy of securing firm demand for its production from Marcellus and Utica while supporting the rapid expansion of electricity-intensive digital infrastructure across the U.S. (Weixel 2025). EQT’s established infrastructure gives it a unique role in supporting reliable baseload energy, particularly as AI and electrification continue to elevate natural gas demand.
INVESTMENT RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE THEME
While the opportunity for rising power demand is substantial, investors should remain mindful of certain risks across the sectors most exposed to this theme. The utilities sector could be hurt by a slowdown in AI-related capital spending or a downdraft in power demand. While this scenario seems unlikely given current trends, any shift in the pace of data center buildouts or regulatory headwinds could introduce volatility. The industrial sector is highly sensitive to the global economy, as its international supply chains and sales are exposed to risks like geopolitical shocks and shifting currency values. Industries like machinery and electrical equipment are vulnerable to trade tensions or geopolitical shocks. A weakening U.S. dollar could offset some of these pressures, but a broad economic slowdown would still weigh on earnings growth. This energy sector, particularly natural gas producers, remains closely tied to expectations for domestic and international power demand. If electricity usage fails to scale as forecasted, or if natural gas prices decline due to oversupply, energy equities could underperform.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Power generation is no longer a slow-moving, utility-only theme: it is now a multi-sector, macro-level shift with long-term investment potential. The surge in electricity demand from AI, electrification, and domestic manufacturing is creating structural tailwinds across utilities, industrials, and energy.
While risks exist, they are outweighed by the durability and scale of this transformation. Companies positioned at the intersection of infrastructure, technology, and energy security are likely to see continued benefits as power demand continues to accelerate. Investors who position early stand to participate in one of the most important infrastructure-driven themes of the decade.
References
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The Next Power Revolution: How Nuclear Fusion Could Fuel the AI Boom
The world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grown exponentially over the last decade. The technology’s explosive growth has sparked a significant increase in global energy demand to support massive data centers, continuous model training, and semiconductor manufacturing, which now consume unfathomable amounts of energy, pushing existing electricity grids to unsustainable limits. AI’s exploding energy demand raises a critical question: how will we power the technologies that shape our future? Once an idea from science fiction, nuclear fusion has emerged as a feasible answer to this question. With companies like Helion and Commonwealth Fusion Systems reaching substantial breakthroughs in prototype development, nuclear fusion is closer to commercialization than ever before. Nuclear fusion presents one of the most promising solutions to meet the rapidly rising energy demands of AI, while expanding data infrastructure and global AI development. Its success would redefine global energy markets, reshape geopolitical power dynamics, and kick off a new wave of economic and technological growth.
Every step of the AI development and execution process, including data generation, model training, and chip manufacturing, requires a continuous power supply. Training state-of-the-art AI models requires millions of kilowatt-hours, enough to power hundreds of homes for a year. Energy requirements are skyrocketing, with no signs of slowing down. By 2026, global data center demand may reach levels comparable to Japan’s current electricity consumption (IEA 2024). Technology companies are at the forefront of this surge; the four most prominent, Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon (AWS), spent over $251 billion USD on AI-related CapEx in 2024 combined, an increase of 60% from 2023. Sources indicate that the total spending for this year on AI CapEx will reach $320 billion USD (Campbell 2025). Most of these companies have their own cloud infrastructure that they strategically locate in areas with grids capable of distributing the required energy for AI development. All of these tech companies are actively training AI models whose rapidly expanding capabilities, such as advanced reasoning and autonomous task execution, are growing exponentially, driving a subsequent increase in energy demand. Current data predicts that by 2027, 40% of AI centers will be operationally constrained by power availability (Gartner 2024). Without breakthroughs in power generation, the economic and environmental burden of sustaining AI development will continue to escalate.
Current energy solutions cannot meet the demands required by today's technological advancements. Renewable energy sources, while valuable for decarbonization, are inherently intermittent. Solar and wind power, leading renewable energy efforts, require ideal conditions such as substantial sunlight or wind for consistent output. On the other hand, while more stable, fossil fuels deepen the climate crisis and are a finite resource. This option is thus politically and environmentally unsustainable as a long-term option for fueling the AI boom. Furthermore, the current power grid infrastructure is unable to handle the demands of power-intensive computing. Data centers not only require a large amount of power, but a stable source of it, as any interruptions or fluctuations can cause model training to fail. Even the most advanced power grid infrastructure systems, such as those in the United States or parts of Europe, are facing infrastructure strain from AI computing. Demand for a clean and reliable source of energy is at an all-time high. Although any one type of energy may accomplish one of these goals, nuclear fusion is poised to meet both demands while supporting environmental efforts.
Nuclear fusion begins when reactors heat deuterium and helium-3 to temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius, resulting in a plasma state. Magnets then force two identical masses from either side of a generator to collide in the center, allowing the deuterium and helium-3 ions to overcome their mutual electrical repulsion and fuse. This combination releases more energy than the reactor consumes during the fusion reaction. Engineers collect the surplus energy from changes in the electrical current resulting from the expansion of plasma inside the generator. This process, although sometimes confused with nuclear fission, is fundamentally different. Nuclear fission is the opposite in the sense that the goal is to split a heavy, unstable nucleus such as uranium into two or more smaller nuclei. Although scientists already use this process in weapons and energy production, splitting atoms is much harder to control. If reactions aren’t contained, they can trigger nuclear meltdowns.
Fusion has remained a theoretical concept for the past century. There are several reasons why this technology has proven to stump engineers and scientists. First, there is the unfathomable amount of heat needed to produce and maintain a plasma state. The sun’s core is 15 million degrees Celsius. Fusion reactors require more than six times that to bring deuterium and helium-3 to a plasma state. To achieve this, extreme temperature generators must be able to create and handle the immense heat and pressure required to compress the fuel. The second issue comes from the confinement and containment of the energy produced in the fusion process. Powerful magnets are used to shape and align the two plasma ions, a process crucial for controlling and sustaining the ions efficiently and effectively. Maintaining the reaction is vital because a change in temperature or stability can cause the whole reaction to terminate. For a fusion reaction to be considered successful, it must produce more energy than it requires to sustain itself and provide a means of capturing that surplus energy.
Although achieving a net positive reaction may prove to be challenging, scientists and engineers have made significant breakthroughs in recent years. In May 2025, German scientists from the Max Planck Society utilized the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator to achieve a new world record in the triple product (fuel density × temperature × confinement time) for long-pulse plasma operation. The experiment marked a major breakthrough because it showed potential in fusion reactors running continuously, rather than the short bursts that fusion experiments previously relied on. Additionally, in 2024, Helical Fusion, a Japan-based startup, successfully achieved nuclear fusion using a large-scale high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coil. This is a crucial step in the development and innovation of atomic fusion, as it presents success with new methods.
With impactful and tangible strides being made in nuclear fusion, it’s essential to consider the power that nuclear fusion can generate. Nuclear fusion releases four million times more energy per unit mass than coal, oil, or gas, and four times as much as nuclear fission technology (IEF 2024). Fusion energy has the potential to power not only cities but entire countries. The introduction of fusion electricity would also allow for the reduction of fossil fuel usage, an energy source tied to price volatility and geopolitical risks. The energy required to produce fusion reactions is minimal compared to the potential output, making it a sustainable option for long-term use (FIA 2024). Not only is fusion energy capable of powering entire countries, but it can also do so with near-zero emissions, as it is one of the most environmentally friendly methods of energy production. Fusion generates no carbon dioxide or harmful atmospheric emissions, meaning nuclear fusion won't contribute to greenhouse gases or the adverse side effects associated with them (IAEA 2024). When compared with atomic fission, fusion reactions produce no long-lived radioactive waste, and reaction temperatures are naturally limited by the laws of physics, rather than human control, making it a safer and more environmentally friendly process (Gates 2023).
With this in mind, it’s no surprise that recent breakthroughs and technological innovations in nuclear fusion have led to massive amounts of invested capital in recent years. The industry has now amassed over $6 billion in investment, a $1.4 billion increase from last year. Additionally, 13 companies dedicated to nuclear fusion research have emerged over the past year, totaling over 45 in the field. Many major industry-leading companies, such as Helion Energy, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, and TAE Technologies, have received backing from top tech firms like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, showing an increasing confidence in nuclear fusion’s commercial viability. New investment not only accelerates commercialization progress but also leads to monumental technological advancements in similar fields, such as semiconductor and aerospace engineering, quantum computing, and medical imaging (NASA 2024; OECD 2021).
Artificial intelligence and nuclear fusion are becoming increasingly connected, as fusion offers the clean, high-output energy needed to support the rapid growth of AI and advanced computing. Not only would fusion permit an exponential growth in AI innovation, but it also has the potential to produce a flywheel effect. While AI may be helpful in its function as a chatbot for answering your daily questions, it also makes a great co-pilot for scientific research, such as nuclear fusion experiments (Investor 2025). Fusion experiments require scientists to process copious amounts of data on plasma behavior, magnetic turbulence, and confinement geometries. AI has the potential to expedite this analysis process. As AI development increases, the quality of fusion experiments will improve, establishing a feedback loop of innovation. Just as steam power launched the Industrial Revolution, oil fueled the 20th century, and electricity powered the digital age, fusion could spark the next global productivity boom.
Nuclear fusion is far more than a milestone in scientific advancement; it represents the stepping stone for the next wave of human and technological innovation. As AI continues to expand rapidly, it becomes clear that energy production, not economic efficiency, is the true limit to growth. Current renewable sources are too inconsistent, while fossil fuels both deplete natural resources and hinder the fight against climate change. Neither of these options are capable of sustaining the growing demand, while fusion, on the other hand, checks every box. With recent breakthroughs and AI’s facilitation of data collection and fusion, the technology has been on the right track towards commercialization. Its potential to generate virtually limitless clean energy could redefine global economics, level power dynamics, and unlock unprecedented scientific progress. Every industrial revolution began with a new fire; fusion is ours.
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Pay to Play: How EA’s Buyout Shifts the Gaming Market Battlefield
When Electronic Arts announced its $59 billion buyout this fall, the news sent tremors across the entertainment world. The company that gave rise to cultural staples like FIFA, The Sims, and Battlefield was being taken private by a Saudi-led consortium, in one of the largest LBOs (Leveraged Buyout) in gaming history. At face value, the deal appeared to be just another mega-merger in a year of corporate consolidation and hypergrowth. But the players behind it are writing a different storyline. The consortium, anchored by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and supported by Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, represents a convergence of power, politics, and, most importantly, capital that could transform the gaming industry’s landscape in a race for cultural acceptance and influence.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the $59 billion deal signals Saudi Arabia’s most ambitious push yet into global entertainment - an effort rooted in its Vision 2030 initiative to diversify away from oil and reposition the UAE as an international cultural force. In recent years, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) has taken stakes in a range of companies, including the publisher of Call of Duty, Activision, as well as live sports organizations such as LIV Golf and Hollywood studios. However, acquiring a gaming titan like EA marks the beginning of an era where control over the digital sphere becomes a force of soft power contributing to the UAE’s aims to capture a larger share of the global stage.
Gaming, after all, has transcended into paid communities, theme parks, and novelty TV series. Billions of people connect and compete daily. Unlike film or television, gaming’s immersive nature allows its players to participate in a reality separate from their real lives. That’s precisely why sovereign wealth funds and private equity groups are circling the industry: it’s a new way to capitalize on the attention of multiple generations.
For EA, the move to go private represents both liberation and risk. Free from the scrutiny of quarterly earnings calls, the company gains flexibility to pursue long-term projects. But analysts have warned that such freedom may come at the expense of creativity. GameSpot reported that the company could soon offload or shutter studios like BioWare and DICE, the creators behind Mass Effect and Battlefield, in pursuit of higher margins and tighter operational control. This is the paradigm of modern media. Where innovation once thrived on artistic experimentation and graphic display, today’s market rewards efficiency, scale, and recurring revenue on its biggest hits and releases. EA’s most profitable division is no longer its blockbuster releases but its live-service model.
What’s emerging, then, is a media environment where creativity competes with capital - and more often than not, loses. Data, not design, drives decisions. Artificial Intelligence tailors player experiences, optimizes ad placements, and even predicts spending behavior on game stores - often raising ethical debates. The art of game-making is quietly evolving into an algorithmic science of attention capture, mirroring what is becoming an algorithmic science of attention capture, displayed on the stage of social media and Agentic AI.
The geopolitical landscape only intensifies transformation. As BBC Sport noted in its coverage of the EA takeover, Saudi Arabia’s investment strategy mirrors its growing influence in sports, from football to Formula One, as part of a broader bid to “own the global stage.” The acquisition of EA fits seamlessly into the strategy, demonstrating a calculated effort to shape how the world plays, interacts, and even imagines itself, much like the popular dystopia of Ready Player One.
It raises a question that goes beyond corporate strategy and planning: what happens when our cultural expressions become instruments of geopolitical profitability? Video games, like movies, were once modern mythology. They allow users to form story lines, establish alternative values, and shape worlds that challenge traditional narratives through player-driven choices. If these narratives continue to serve the interests of state-backed investors and private financiers, then the media risks losing its autonomy.
Still, there’s a certain inevitability to this evolution. In an era when streaming services, sports leagues, and tech platforms are converging, gaming is the next to follow suit. For players, this future may bring more polished games, more seamless cross-platform experiences, a broader global reach, and spending. For creators, it may mean larger budgets but narrower creative freedom. For everyone else, it’s a reminder that in today’s economy, even leisure can be monetized. Between artistry and algorithm, between imagination and investment, the future of modern media has never been more contested. The question now is whether the world’s most powerful will start playing the game of geopolitical dominance.
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