AI’s volatile power demand is damaging its own data centers

Rapid swings in AI data centers’ power demands are straining vital equipment, causing batteries, generators and cooling systems to malfunction or wear out far sooner than expected.

As the AI boom accelerates, these technical problems suggest added costs and unforeseen reliability problems, with even a few minutes of lost uptime hitting data-center developers’ revenue. They come at a time when investors and lenders are already jittery about hyperscalers’ hundreds of billions of dollars of spending, amid growing concerns that these facilities could be depreciating much faster than estimated.