Electric power advantage becomes key! Goldman Sachs bullish on China overtaking the United States in AI data center competition.

Goldman Sachs Group stated that China's massive power generation construction will give it an advantage over the United States in expanding data centers powered by artificial intelligence. Since facing a series of power shortage issues in 2021 and 2022, China has been constructing power facilities at a large scale, with construction speeds for renewable energy, coal-fired power plants, and nuclear power units leading the world. By 2030, China may have about 400 gigawatts of spare power capacity, three times the expected global demand for data centers, providing ample space for the continuous expansion of data centers. In a recent research report, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote, "We expect China's spare capacity to remain sufficient to meet the increasing power needs of data centers and other industries." Although China currently holds about a quarter of the global data center capacity, it may soon catch up with the leading United States, which holds a 44% market share. Goldman Sachs stated that data centers already account for about 6% of U.S. electricity demand, and this rapid growth coupled with a lack of new power plant construction means that eight out of thirteen regional grids in the U.S. have already reached or fallen below critical spare capacity levels, making them susceptible to electricity price spikes or shortages. By 2030, this tension may restrict the growth of data centers, as they require a large amount of electricity to operate and cool all their computing power internally. Analysts stated, "Limited effective spare power capacity could become a bottleneck for further development of data centers in the United States. In contrast, China's grid already has a significant amount of spare capacity, and we expect this capacity to expand further."