Dr Abba Aliyu, MD REA
A shift is taking place in the global economy. For much of the past decade, discussions about artificial intelligence centered on algorithms, semiconductors, GPUs, and data.
In 2026, another factor has moved decisively to the centre of the conversation, electricity. AI companies are discovering that billions of dollars of GPUs are of limited value if sufficient, reliable electricity cannot be delivered to them.
In view of this, some of the world’s largest technology companies are beginning to behave increasingly like energy companies, contracting nuclear generation, investing in new reactors, developing dedicated gas generation, acquiring or securing power infrastructure, investing in storage, and locating data centres according to the availability of electricity.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data-centre electricity consumption is projected to reach roughly 945 TWh by 2030, approximately double today’s level, with consumption growing about 15% annually between 2024 and 2030 more than four times the growth rate of electricity consumption in the rest of the economy.
The IEA now describes the broader transformation as an “Age of Electricity,” forecasting that the world will add, on average, about 50% more electricity demand each year between 2026 and 2030 than it added annually during the previous decade.
Data centres, electrification, cooling, manufacturing, and electric mobility are among the principal drivers.
This represents both a warning and an extraordinary opportunity for Nigeria. Nigeria must stop seeing electricity access solely as a social-development intervention. Electricity is increasingly an economic infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and national competitiveness infrastructure.
What this means for Nigeria, REA and RAMCO
- Elon Musk did not buy a nuclear plant but what xAI Is doing may be more significant
The story circulating that Elon Musk purchased a nuclear power plant appears to be inaccurate.
There is no credible evidence that Musk or xAI has purchased an operating nuclear power station.
However, the underlying story illustrates the electricity challenge facing AI remarkably well.
Musk confirmed in 2025 that xAI had acquired power-generation equipment overseas for deployment in the United States.
More recently, xAI has aggressively developed its own electricity supply around its enormous Colossus computing infrastructure rather than relying exclusively upon traditional grid connections.
Reuters reported that xAI deployed significant numbers of gas turbines to support its Tennessee data-centre operations, although aspects of the deployment have generated environmental and permitting controversy.
More dramatically, in January 2026 xAI announced an investment of more than $20 billion for its Southaven, Mississippi data-centre development. The project is expected to expand xAI’s computing infrastructure toward approximately 2 GW.
The lesson
The significant point is not whether Musk bought a nuclear plant.
It is that an AI company is effectively saying, “If the electricity system cannot provide power quickly enough, we will develop the power infrastructure ourselves.”
This represents a profound change in the relationship between technology and energy.
- Meta has become one of the world’s largest corporate nuclear-energy buyers
In January 2026, Meta announced nuclear-energy agreements with Vistra, TerraPower, and Oklo aimed at supporting as much as 6.6 GW of new and existing clean generation by 2035.
Together with Meta’s broader agreements, the company later stated that it was supporting approximately 7.7 GW of nuclear energy across arrangements involving Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo, and Constellation.
This is remarkable.
Meta is fundamentally an internet and AI company, yet its future competitiveness has become sufficiently dependent on electricity that securing gigawatts of nuclear generation is now part of its infrastructure strategy.
Lesson
AI companies are becoming anchor customers for new electricity infrastructure.
Nigeria should consider whether large digital companies, telecommunications companies, industrial parks, universities, mining operations, and manufacturing clusters could similarly become anchor customers for distributed generation.
- Microsoft is helping bring a retired nuclear reactor back into service
Microsoft entered into a 20-year electricity purchase agreement with Constellation that supported plans to restart the former Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Pennsylvania, now known as the Crane Clean Energy Center.
The plant is expected to restore approximately 835 MW of firm generation.
However, another development is equally important. Constellation says it can have the plant generating by 2027, while PJM indicated that transmission upgrades could potentially delay full grid interconnection until 2031.
This means a functioning power plant could theoretically exist while adequate network capacity to transport its electricity does not.
Lesson
Generation capacity is not the same thing as delivered electricity. The future metric should therefore not merely be? “How many megawatts did we construct?”
It should increasingly become, “How many reliable megawatts reached productive customers, for how many hours, and what economic activity did those megawatts create?”
- Google is helping create a new generation of nuclear reactors
Google entered into a landmark arrangement with Kairos Power for advanced nuclear generation.
In April 2026, Kairos broke ground on its Hermes 2 demonstration facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Hermes 2 is designed to supply up to 50 MW into the Tennessee Valley Authority system and support the decarbonisation of Google’s data centres in Tennessee and Alabama.
The significance is greater than 50 MW. Google is helping create a future market for small modular and advanced nuclear reactors, just as technology companies helped create markets for renewable PPAs years earlier.
Lesson
The companies consuming electricity are beginning to influence which technologies get financed and built.
Nigeria can apply the same principle to distributed renewable energy. Large guaranteed electricity buyers can provide the demand certainty needed to finance generation assets.
- Amazon is also moving deeply into nuclear energy
Amazon has invested in X-energy, one of the leading developers of small modular reactor technology.
Its original agreement included support for manufacturing capacity capable of underpinning more than 5 GW of future nuclear projects using X-energy technology.
The financial market has subsequently validated some of this enthusiasm. In April 2026, Amazon-backed X-energy raised approximately $1.02 billion through its U.S. IPO.
AWS previously purchased a data-centre campus beside Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna nuclear station for approximately $650 million, providing another example of computing infrastructure migrating toward available electricity.
Lesson
The emerging formula is clear: Power location → Data-centre location → Investment location → Jobs → Economic activity.
Electricity availability is increasingly determining where digital capital goes.
- OpenAI’s stargate shows the scale at which AI and energy are converging
Stargate has targeted approximately $500 billion of investment and 10 GW of AI infrastructure capacity.
In January 2026, OpenAI and SoftBank each committed $500 million to SB Energy. OpenAI also selected SB Energy to develop and operate a previously announced 1.2 GW data-centre site in Texas.
Lesson
The important part is that SB Energy is not simply developing buildings. Its role brings together data-centre infrastructure and associated energy infrastructure.
AI infrastructure and electricity infrastructure are therefore increasingly being designed as one integrated asset class.
- Electricity demand is beginning to accelerate after years of relative stagnation
The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects American electricity consumption to establish new records in both 2026 and 2027, with AI and data-centre expansion among the major drivers. Consumption is forecast to increase from approximately 4,195 billion kWh in 2025 to 4,268 billion kWh in 2026 and 4,391 billion kWh in 2027.
This is not simply an American development. The IEA estimates global electricity generation required for data centres could rise from approximately 460 TWh in 2024 to more than 1,000 TWh in 2030.
That increase alone is comparable to the annual electricity consumption of some major industrial economies.
Electricity is therefore becoming a scarce strategic commodity.
Countries capable of delivering abundant, reliable, and competitively priced electricity will possess an increasingly powerful advantage in attracting digital investment.
- AI is reviving the gas-turbine industry
Despite unprecedented renewable-energy investment, AI’s requirement for continuous electricity has produced another surprising development, natural gas generation is booming.
Siemens Energy reported record orders and financial performance in 2026, partly driven by gas-turbine demand associated with AI data centres and new power plants.
Reuters reports that planned U.S. gas generation surged dramatically during 2025, while turbine manufacturers face extremely long equipment lead times. Some large turbines are effectively booked several years ahead.
AI is therefore demonstrating something important that renewables provide cheap energy.
But high-value digital infrastructure also values
availability, reliability, dispatchability, and speed of deployment.
For Nigeria, this reinforces the importance of intelligently combining: Solar + Batteries + Gas + Grid + Demand Management.
It should not become an ideological argument between individual technologies.
The objective should be reliable and economically competitive electricity.
- Grid capacity is emerging as perhaps the biggest constraint of all
Three days ago, PJM, the largest electricity market in the United States proposed emergency arrangements under which large data centres could be required to move onto backup generation when the system approaches critical conditions.
PJM serves roughly 67 million people, yet rapid demand expansion means even one of the world’s most sophisticated electricity systems is having difficulty accommodating new large loads.
This illustrates an emerging global phenomenon. The new bottleneck is not necessarily generation, it is often; transmission,
transformers, substations, interconnection capacity, grid flexibility, storage and permitting.
Electricity infrastructure that was previously regarded as mundane is becoming strategic infrastructure for AI.
- China is producing so much renewable electricity that its grid cannot absorb it
Perhaps the most important development for Nigeria occurred on 17 August 2026. Reuters reports estimates indicating that China curtailed around 360 TWh of renewable electricity during the first half of 2026, as generation expanded faster than parts of the grid could absorb it.
Renewable curtailment is becoming increasingly visible elsewhere as well. California curtailed approximately 4.5 million MWh of solar and wind generation during the first half of 2026, already exceeding its curtailment for all of 2025.
Consequently, storage is becoming increasingly integrated with renewable development. This is an extraordinary lesson. The problem of the future may not simply be, “How do we produce electricity?”
It will increasingly become, “How do we store, move, manage, and monetise electricity when it is produced?”
THE NEW GLOBAL EQUATION
These developments point toward a new economic equation.
AI COMPETITIVENESS = COMPUTE + ELECTRICITY + LAND + CONNECTIVITY + CAPITAL
A country possessing excellent AI talent but inadequate electricity infrastructure will struggle to participate fully in the emerging AI economy.
Conversely, countries possessing abundant energy resources can potentially turn electricity into a platform for attracting digital investment.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR NIGERIA
Nigeria should recognise that its electricity deficit, although currently a major developmental constraint, can paradoxically become an investment opportunity.
Much of the country’s electricity infrastructure still needs to be constructed, Nigeria has the opportunity to leapfrog some legacy infrastructure models.
Rather than thinking exclusively about large centralized generation, transmission, distribution and the consumer, the country can instead develop: Generation + Storage + Digital infrastructure + Productive demand within the same geography.
Moving from megawatts to true economic sovereignty requires a fundamental rethink of our national strategy, a blueprint for REA, RAMCO and the creation of Nigerian Digital Energy Zones.
——————————————
