BloombergNEF published a report on July 21st projecting that US data centers will use about 20% of the country's total electricity by 2035. Right now that number sits at roughly 6%. The jump is extraordinary, and the forecast itself was revised upward by 83% since December, which means experts keep underestimating how fast this is growing.
To put the scale in context: by 2033, if AI adoption continues at its current pace, data centers worldwide will create roughly as much new electricity demand as the entire country of India uses today.
The reason forecasts keep getting revised upward is that new data center projects keep getting larger. Over a quarter of the 150 significant US data center projects announced in the past year are each bigger than 500 megawatts. That is the equivalent of a mid-sized power plant, just for one facility. Companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta are collectively planning to spend around $700 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026 alone.
Here is where it starts to directly affect businesses outside the tech sector. The grid covering Virginia through Illinois, home to most US data centers, has seen its capacity prices rise more than tenfold since 2024. An independent analysis found that data centers were responsible for 63% of that price increase, adding $9.3 billion in costs that all electricity customers in the region must absorb.
For manufacturers, that math is brutal. Industrial electricity prices rose 31% in Pennsylvania and 26% in Ohio over one year, while the national average increase was 7%. A 141-year-old brick company in Ohio saw its monthly capacity charge alone jump from $1,600 to nearly $12,000. It raised prices to compensate, but margins still shrank. This pattern is playing out across energy-intensive industries in the affected states.
Goldman Sachs calculates that electricity prices across the US rose 6.9% in 2025, more than double the general inflation rate. The bank projects this will continue, with data centers accounting for 40% of all new electricity demand growth through the end of the decade.
The structural problem is timing. Data centers can be built in roughly two to three years. Power plants take five to ten. The grid operator covering most of the US data center belt failed for the first time ever to secure enough generating capacity in its December 2025 auction. The gap between what is being demanded and what can be supplied is the engine pushing prices higher.
If your business operates in or near a state with high data center concentration, especially Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Georgia, your energy costs are likely already affected. If you have not reviewed your electricity contracts and procurement strategy recently, this is the moment to do it. Locking in fixed-rate contracts before the next round of capacity auctions, or exploring on-site generation options, are the two most concrete steps available right now.
For businesses outside those states, the spillover is real but slower. Goldman Sachs expects higher electricity prices to add modestly to core inflation through 2028, pushing up costs in food production, medical services, transportation, and logistics. The effect on your cost base may be indirect, but it is already in motion.