Texas has been one of the biggest destinations for AI data centers because of cheap land, abundant energy and a relatively business-friendly environment. Now the state is starting to hit the brakes.

Texas officials are scrutinizing new data-center projects as enormous AI facilities place growing demands on the electrical grid. Some proposed projects require as much electricity as entire cities.

We've spent the last few years talking about GPUs as the bottleneck to AI growth. But chips can be manufactured faster than power plants, transmission lines and substations can be built.

If AI compute demand keeps growing at anything close to current projections, the competitive advantage may eventually shift from who has the best chips to who can actually secure the electricity to run them. And that could make energy infrastructure one of the most important—and overlooked—parts of the AI boom.

Are power grids becoming the real bottleneck to AI growth?