Natural Gas: More Than a Bridge Solution to the AI Future

Natural gas is poised to be one of two big winners in the rising competition to provide reliable, 24/7 power generation to datacenters in the United states and around the world. The nature of the rapidly evolving playing field means gas likely won’t be just a temporary solution to a more permanent future powered by nuclear or another currently aspirational fuel source.

As the number and size of power-hungry AI-related datacenters continue to expand, questions related to how their electricity needs will be satisfied become increasingly important to all stakeholders. Datacenter developers in some areas are discovering that local power grids can’t be relied upon to fill their needs and are developing plans for workable alternative solutions.

While the term “ESG” has been de-emphasized in the corporate lexicon, concerns about emissions remain a high priority. Many tech firms initially sought to meet their needs with some combination of renewables, most often wind and/or solar combined with stationary batteries. But they quickly realized that the technology just isn’t there to meet their “five nines” uptime requirements which dictate their datacenters must remain up and running 99.999% of the time.

As the situation evolved throughout 2024 and into 2025, developers increasingly landed on a common two-step solution to powering their installations: Combined cycle natural gas in the near term, followed by a conversion to or mixing-in of nuclear power in the longer term. This is a plan that appears to make perfect sense on the surface, but the future for expansion of nuclear power remains so uncertain in many countries – including the United States – that the timing for such a conversion or comingling of generation types remains largely up in the air.