Artificial intelligence data centers could “distort” the US power grid

The proliferation of data centers aimed at meeting the computational needs of artificial intelligence could be bad news for the U.S. power grid, according to a new report. New report in Bloomberg.

Using 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 anomalies live within 20 miles of critical data center activity.

In other words, there appears to be a connection between proximity to a data center and “bad harmonics” — a term that refers to the less-than-ideal flow of electrical power to homes.

Bloomberg says this “distorted” energy can eventually destroy plugged-in devices, increase exposure to electrical fires, and even lead to power outages. AI data centers may be more problematic due to their fluctuating power requirements.

“No network is designed to be able to handle this kind of load fluctuations for not just a single data center but multiple data centers at the same time,” said Aman Joshi, chief commercial officer at Bloom Energy.

A spokesman for Commonwealth Edison in Chicago told Bloomberg that the tool “strongly calls into question the accuracy and underlying assumptions of Whisker Lab’s claims.”