Data centers are rapidly becoming some of the largest electricity consumers in the world. A single hyperscale data center can draw between 20 and 100 megawatts, similar in scale to a major hospital campus or even a moderate industrial plant.

To put it in perspective:

• Airports: A major international airport like Denver or Atlanta can use 30–50 megawatts. Heathrow Airport, one of the busiest in the world, uses up to 100.
• Stadiums: Wembley Stadium outside London has a peak load of 4 megawatts, while a modern NFL stadium is closer to 10 megawatts.
• Universities: Large research universities like Harvard can consume up to 40 megawatts of power.
• States: The entire state of Nevada has a peak load of 6.65 gigawatts, making it just 30% larger than the Stargate data center complex being developed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.

Demand is only increasing. In NextEra’s recent earnings call, CEO John Ketchum pointed out that demand for electricity is growing at its fastest pace since the industrial boom that followed World War II.