Utilities Are ‘Full Speed’ on Data Centers

(Bloomberg) -- Two of the US biggest utilities said that their data center customers are proceeding “full speed ahead” even after Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek threw questions over the future for power-demand growth.

Analysts asked executives from Duke Energy Corp. and American Electric Power whether the DeepSeek news last month had slowed the massive demands for electricity the companies are receiving from data center developers. 

Harry Sideris, Duke’s incoming chief executive officer, said: “In our discussions with the hyper scalers, they anticipated efficiency gains so DeepSeek was not a surprise to them.” He added that technology companies were looking into whether DeepSeek’s efficiency would increase demand for AI and that “we’ve seen a lot more discussions with accelerating some of their work.”

AEP CEO Bill Fehrman’s comments also underscored the point.

“When DeepSeek came out, we had conversations with a number of our customers, and none of those individuals spoke in any way that we would be seeing a change,” Fehrman said. 

AI’s energy needs have led companies such as OpenAI, Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to seek new sources of power, such as shuttered nuclear plants. DeepSeek’s model appears to be more efficient and last month, some analyst had raised whether the significant electric demand projections for the US would remain intact. 

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