10 AI News You Can’t Miss

According to a Department of Energy-backed study, U.S. data center power demand could nearly triple in the next three years. With the industry going through an artificial intelligence transformation, data centers could account for as much as 12% of total US electricity consumption. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report revealed that by 2028, data centers’ annual energy use could reach between 74 and 132 gigawatts. The report was produced in an attempt to understand how Big Tech’s data center demand will impact electrical grids, power bills, and the climate.

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“This really signals to us where the frontier is in terms of growing energy demand in the U.S…”What this report is highlighting is what’s actually growing the fastest, and the leading edge of demand growth in the U.S. is the very new growth in artificial-intelligence data centers”.

– Avi Shultz, director of the DOE’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office.

A McKinsey analysis reveals how the United States is expected to be the fastest-growing market for data centers, fueled by the continued increase in data, compute, connectivity from digitalization, cloud migration, as well as the scaling of new technologies, particularly AI.

A similar study by Bain & Company reveals that the global electricity demand has jumped an estimated 72% from 2019 to 2023 due to the surge in AI. The study further revealed that by 2027, demand could double 2023 levels and is expected to continue rising after 2027. The rate, however, is highly uncertain, depending on factors such as generative AI adoption, regulations, the data center supply chain’s ability to handle growth, and the commercialization of emerging energy technologies.

With the need for energy growing rapidly, the power ecosystem is grappling with many challenges at the same time. From reliable power sources, sustainability of power, and upstream infrastructure for power access, to power equipment within data centers, many issues must be addressed before it can have its power needs satisfied. According to a McKinsey study, the time to get new power connections for data center sites in major data center hubs such as Northern Virginia; Santa Clara, California; and Phoenix has been increasing. So much so that locations outside of the United States have placed moratoriums on many new data center builds primarily because they lack the power infrastructure to support them. As such, meeting these needs is highly important to fully realize the potential of artificial intelligence.

For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds.

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10. Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 26

Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN) is a technology and communications company that provides communications services to businesses and consumers. On December 19, Citi issued a Neutral rating on Lumen, citing how the company is working with two investment banks to explore strategic options for its fiber assets. This initiative aims to monetize these assets, reduce financial leverage, and extend the company’s cash runway. The company’s fiber assets are important for supporting AI workloads, providing high-speed, low-latency data transmission.