This is like a major highway. They get overloaded at rush hour, so they build lanes to accommodate peak traffic. But travel any highway at 2AM (outside of LA/NYC sized metropolises which can have rush hour at any time) and you get an entire highway to yourself. The problem is rush hour. If more AI requests could be load balanced to run overnight, we’d solve a large part of the current pressure. But everyone demands search engine-like response times, even if overnight wouldn’t be a problem.
The correct solution here is colocation of AI workloads with the power plants and switch yards.
No one is going to complain about site expansion at a location that is already running 3gw of generating units. You probably wouldn't even see this in the news.
What is driving us to build these in terrible locations that demand massive transmission infra upgrades? I see no point other than "that's where we used to build them". These things are industrial now. Not commercial. They should be installed next to the ship yards and aluminum smelters.