Analysis:Texas' halt on powering data centers reflects US reckoning over 'ghost' demand

Sept 1 : Data centers have requested roughly as much electricity across the middle swath of the United States as it takes to power every home in the country, but much of that demand may be an illusion.In an attempt to find out what is real, Texas recently became the first major data center hub to freeze new grid connections for the facilities and investigate their plans. Other U.S. states are taking similar steps to fix the intensifying problem that is vexing regulators and politicians nationwide. A Reuters review of utility and grid data found that electricity requests from very large power users, mostly data centers, exceed 700 gigawatts — or more than 10 times industry estimates of current U.S. data center power use — across portions of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and the South.Consumer a