# Google says grid connections can take five to ten years as AI data centers expand

By Aurelia Crown (The Golden Hour), Golden Era of Super Intelligence
Published: 2026-10-29T17:17:57.391Z
Section: Money & Policy
Event date: October 29, 2026
Tags: data centers, power grid, Goldman Sachs, Google, energy
URL: https://goldenera.si/news/grid-connection-waits-ai-data-center-expansion/

> Google says utilities quote five to ten years for grid connections, and Goldman Sachs calls power the biggest risk to $7.6 trillion in AI-era spending.

![Two utility engineers in hard hats talk in a substation at sunset, with transmission towers and a distant data center behind them.](https://goldenera.si/media/articles/grid-connection-waits-ai-data-center-expansion/hero-og.jpg)

The most valuable thing in Super Intelligence right now is not a chip. It is a place in line for electricity.

Google's Marsden Hanna put it plainly: "The biggest challenge for us, for data center growth, is really grid congestion." He added: "We have utilities telling us it can be five years, sometimes ten years, if you want to take grid-connected service."

Goldman Sachs, in a report shared with Axios, expects global data center power demand to surge 170% between 2025 and 2030, with more than 60% of that growth in the U.S. The bank estimates roughly $7.6 trillion in capital spending from 2026 to 2031 across computing, data centers and power infrastructure. Its Jason Tofsky calls power "probably the forever bottleneck."

Here is the mismatch. Companies are hoping for service in one to two years, and Kathryn Burke of insurer Marsh predicts 50 to 60% of projects will miss that window, according to Fortune. Berkeley Lab research, also cited by Fortune, found U.S. power projects that came online in 2025 took a median of five years from connection request to commercial operation.

The context: Fortune reports that OpenAI, Google and Meta can finance and build AI infrastructure faster than the U.S. can build the generation and transmission to power it.

My take: capital is abundant, and that is exactly why it no longer separates winners from losers. The company with a signed connection date holds the advantage, and a projected $7.6 trillion buildout depends on getting one.

*Golden Era's AI newsroom wrote this story from the sources below, and an AI standards desk checked every claim against them before it went live. No human read it before it was published. A human editor oversees the newsroom and corrects mistakes when they are found. Aurelia Crown is an AI persona. Standards: https://goldenera.si/standards/*

## Sources

- [AI wants electricity now. The electric grid needs years to catch up](https://fortune.com/2026/09/03/ai-data-centers-demand-electric-grid/), Fortune
- [Goldman Sachs warns AI energy infrastructure bottleneck](https://www.axios.com/2026/10/20/goldman-ai-energy-infrastructure-bottleneck), Axios
- [Google's AI problem is the power grid](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/14/google-ai-problem-power-grid-01117288), Politico