One Ohio utility was holding 30 gigawatts of data center requests. It asked developers to put money down, and the requests fell to 13. That gap is the story of AI's power demand right now: nobody knows how much of it is real, and America is rebuilding its grid against the guess.

Power Play is a six-part investigation from Quartz into what AI's electricity demand is doing to the American grid, and who ends up paying for it. New episodes coming out now.​