The proliferation of data centers aiming to meet the computational needs of AI could be bad news for the US power grid, according to a new report in Bloomberg.
Using the 1 million residential sensors tracked by Whisker Labs, along with market intelligence data from DC Byte, Bloomberg found that more than half of the households showing the worst power distortions live within 20 miles of significant data center activity.
In other words, there appears to be a link between data center proximity and “bad harmonics” — a term for the less-than-ideal flow of electrical power into homes.
Bloomberg says this “distorted” power could eventually destroy plugged-in appliances, increase vulnerability to electrical fires, and even lead to brownouts and blackouts. And AI data centers could be even more problematic because of their volatile energy requirements.
“No grid is designed to be able to handle that kind of load fluctuation not only for one data center but for multiple data centers at the same time,” said Bloom Energy’s chief commercial officer Aman Joshi.
A spokesperson for Chicago’s Commonwealth Edison told Bloomberg the utility “strongly questions the accuracy and underlying assumptions of Whisker Lab’s claims.”
