US Gas Power Buildout Overtakes China, Driven by AI Datacenters

US Reclaims Lead in Gas Power Construction

The United States has overtaken China as the world's largest builder of new gas-fired power generation, reversing decades of Chinese dominance in fossil fuel infrastructure expansion. The shift stems primarily from a datacenter construction boom driven by artificial intelligence demand, according to a new report from Global Energy Monitor.

Under-construction gas projects in the US jumped 76% in the first half of 2025 alone. The country is now building twice the gas-fired capacity of China and more than any other nation. When including announced and pre-construction projects, the US pipeline is nearly three times larger than China's.

Since January, total gas power capacity in development across America has grown from 252 gigawatts to 378 gigawatts—representing one-third of the global total. If all projects reach completion, the US gas fleet would expand by roughly two-thirds at a capital cost exceeding $647 billion, Global Energy Monitor found.

AI Infrastructure Fuels Fossil Expansion

Approximately half of the new gas capacity connects directly to planned datacenters requiring massive electricity supplies for AI workloads. Major technology companies including Google, OpenAI, and Amazon are racing to build facilities, creating a backlog for efficient gas turbines used in accompanying power plants.

The supply crunch has pushed some companies, including Elon Musk's xAI, toward smaller, less efficient turbines that produce higher emissions. One estimate suggests powering this datacenter expansion with gas rather than renewable energy could increase US power sector emissions by as much as 20%.

"There has been an enormous surge in datacenter proposals powered by gas in the past year and the climate implications of that is huge," said Jenny Martos, a project manager at Global Energy Monitor, as reported by The Guardian. "Building all of this gas for AI locks in decades of pollution and it is also locking in dependence on a volatile fuel cost, which will get passed down to rate payers."

Growing Local Opposition

Public resistance to datacenter development has intensified sharply. A recent Heatmap poll found three-quarters of Americans oppose living near a datacenter—a dramatic increase from the previous year. Concerns center on climate impact, rising electricity bills, tax incentives for AI companies, and water scarcity, with two-thirds of more than 800 planned datacenters located in drought-affected regions.

Dozens of cities and counties have imposed restrictions on new datacenter construction. New York became the first state to enact a temporary ban on new hyper-scale datacenter permitting and construction in July.

Despite this backlash, the Trump administration has championed datacenter expansion and eliminated environmental reviews to accelerate approvals. The president stated this month that "data centers could be bigger than oil" and urged state governors to reduce taxes to attract projects.

Why it matters

The International Energy Agency forecasts US spending on coal and gas power plants will exceed China's for the first time in decades—upending assumptions about global emissions trajectories just as AI infrastructure demands surge. This reversal undermines arguments that American climate action is futile given Chinese fossil fuel expansion, while locking in emissions sources that could persist for decades and potentially derail corporate and national decarbonization commitments.

These details were first reported by The Guardian.