The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence and data centers is pushing the U.S. electrical grid into uncharted territory, prompting one of the nation’s top utility executives to issue a stark warning to regulators: The system is flashing warning signs that can no longer be ignored.
Calvin Butler, CEO of Exelon, the nation’s largest utility company by customer count, compared the current state of the U.S. energy grid to a vehicle being driven to the brink of failure, in conversation with Fortune‘s Executive Editorial Director Diane Brady at the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco.
“We are telling policy makers the warning lights are on,” Butler said. It’s like you’re driving your car, the check engine light is on, and you just don’t want to take it into the shop. “You’re like, I’m going to keep pushing this and no one’s going to pay attention until it breaks down,” Butler told Brady. From his perspective, he sees a malfunction as inevitable. “I’m telling you on that hottest day or that coldest day, you might have a supply crunch and people are going to suffer. I’m telling you, you have to fix it now.”
Butler’s warning comes, of course, amidst a historic surge in electricity demand as AI usage gobbles up compute, which in turn gobbles up energy across the country. There’s a bit more to it than that, Butler said, with pressure coming from a “convergence” of factors, including the onshoring of manufacturing and the broader electrification of the economy.
