The AI Data-Center Boom Is Coming to America’s Heartland

Building advanced artificial-intelligence systems will take city-sized amounts of power, which has turbocharged electricity demand projections for the first time this century. Tech companies are pressing into unexpected parts of the country, far from traditional data-center markets such as Northern Virginia. They are hunting for huge swaths of flat land with access to natural gas and transmission lines, landing them on the doorstep of oil-and-gas country, including Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale. Other matchups between tech and natural gas are emerging from North Dakota to West Texas, where the first site for the Stargate venture—a new $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative—will feature on-site natural gas-fired power. Exxon Mobil and Chevron are getting into the electricity business to power AI, too.