Goldman Sachs Warns US Grids Face Power Crunch by 2030

Almost all US power grids will lack critical spare capacity by 2030 as demand surges to supply data centers, with bottlenecks threatening to hand China an edge in the artificial-intelligence boom, according to an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Unless addressed, those constraints may ultimately allow China to pull ahead in the AI race, said Samantha Dart, Goldman’s co-head of global commodities research.

“We aren’t adding enough capacity,” she said, speaking Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Energy, CleanTech and Utilities Conference in Miami.

Grids typically target a reserve margin of at least 15% — the gap between ...