Pat Gelsinger warns US energy constraints are limiting data center and AI growth

America wants to build the future of computing. It may not have the electricity to plug it in. That was the warning from Pat Gelsinger, the former Intel CEO who is now a general partner at Playground Global. On an a16z podcast appearance on October 9, 2026, he argued that US energy capacity has been effectively flat for 15 years. In his view, that stagnation is now a hard ceiling on economic growth in an AI-driven economy. His sharpest line cut straight to the problem facing every company racing to build AI infrastructure. “Why build a new data center and buy the million GPUs if I can’t power them?” Fifteen years of running in place Gelsinger’s core point is about net growth, not gross additions. The US has been adding renewable energy capacity. It has also been retiring coal plants. According to Gelsinger, those two trends have nearly cancelled each other out. There has been some recent movement. Gelsinger acknowledged that capacity growth has picked up to about 4% annually. He also said that pace falls well short of what AI and data center operators will need. The timelines for adding new power are the other half of the problem. Gelsinger said gas turbine deliveries now take appr...