"He reportedly wants 250 gigawatts of new electricity-equal to about half of Europe's all-time peak load-to run gigantic new data centers in the U.S. and elsewhere worldwide by 2033. Building or expanding power plants to generate that much electricity on Altman's timetable indeed seems almost inconceivable. "What OpenAI is trying to do is absolutely historic," says Virun Sivaram, Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate at the Council on Foreign Relations."
"Sivaram, in addition to his position at the CFR, is the founder and CEO of Emerald AI, a startup that launched in July. "I founded it directly to solve this problem," he says-not just Altman's problem specifically, but the larger problem of powering the data centers that all AI companies need."
Sam Altman's plan could require roughly 250 gigawatts of new electricity to power massive AI data centers worldwide by 2033, about half of Europe's all-time peak load. Building that much new generation on the proposed timetable appears nearly impossible given current grids and power plants. Virun Sivaram characterizes the effort as historic but says grids cannot supply that energy on AI's timeline. Sivaram founded Emerald AI to address the problem by leveraging existing electricity capacity and solving the rare high-demand moments when the grid cannot meet additional loads, with support from major investors and tech figures.
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