In response to the societal challenge of growing electricity demand from AI data centers, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is launching the Next Generation Data Centers Institute (NGDCI). This internal ORNL institute will unite the laboratory’s unique expertise and facilities that span energy technologies, high-performance computing, cybersecurity, and grid science to ensure that America’s rapidly growing AI infrastructure remains secure, efficient, and reliable.
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ORNL’s launch of NGDCI comes as the federal government is advancing its own national initiative: Genesis Mission . The Genesis Misson, led by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), calls for linking the nation’s most powerful computing resources with the energy systems that support them, doubling the productivity and impact of American research and development within a decade.
“Artificial intelligence is transforming every part of our society, but its energy appetite is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” said ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer. “The electricity required to power AI data centers is expected to double or triple in the coming decade, straining infrastructure that is already under pressure. ORNL is uniquely positioned to meet this challenge.”
NGDCI supports the national mission to secure American energy dominance and deliver the science and technology needed to power, cool, operate, and secure AI infrastructure at scale. As ORNL prepares to deploy Discovery and Lux — next-generation AI supercomputer systems — NGDCI will focus on the technologies required to operate these systems reliably while accelerating scientific breakthroughs.
Data centers account for more than 4% of U.S. electricity use , and by 2030, that figure could climb as high as 17%, according to analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute . AI-specific workloads drive much of this growth: Training a single large language model can consume hundreds of megawatt-hours of electricity. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation warns that surging demand from AI and industrial electrification poses mounting risks to grid reliability.
Investment is rising accordingly. McKinsey estimates that global data center infrastructure spending will reach $7 trillion by 2030, with more than 40% in the United States.
“That scale of opportunity also exposes critical vulnerabilities in power, cooling, and advanced components. NGDCI will not only help U.S. industry capture this generational opportunity but also ensure that the supply chains underpinning it are secure and aligned with national interests,” Streiffer said.
As data center demand accelerates, the nation’s grid cannot absorb projected load growth without new approaches to planning and operation. Yet with intelligent integration — linking power, cooling, thermal management, workload scheduling, and AI-enabled forecasting — the next generation of data centers could shift from being stressors to becoming contributors to resilience.
NGDCI will tap into the capabilities of the lab’s Modeling Energy Growth Associated with Data Centers (MEGA-DC) project, which has created a multi-criteria decision support platform. MEGA-DC models and forecasts the costs and economic benefits of implications of infrastructure upgrades needed by utilities, states, data center developers, and end-use consumers to help decision-makers identify pathways for scalable AI data center growth.
“We envision a future where data centers are national assets — adaptive, efficient, and strengthening the nation’s grid while fueling discovery and advancing America’s leadership in AI,” said ORNL’s Robert Wagner, associate laboratory director for energy science and technology.
Companies across the AI and energy ecosystem, including AMD, Carrier Energy, Chemours, and NVIDIA, welcome the launch of NGDCI as a timely effort to address rapidly emerging challenges.
“NGDCI aims to drive innovation that makes AI data centers more efficient, reliable, secure, and integrated with the nation’s energy system,” said Tom King, ORNL grid infrastructure crosscut lead. “It connects ORNL’s energy science, computing, and national security strengths, while remaining flexible and collaborative with other national labs, industry, and utilities.”
The Oak Ridge Reservation has been selected by DOE as a site for advancing large-scale AI data center and energy generation projects, reflecting its suitability for hosting secure, reliable and grid-supportive AI infrastructure on federally managed land.
NGDCI will focus on six research areas:
NGDCI supports national goals to build the world’s most powerful scientific platform to accelerate discovery science, strengthen national security, and drive energy innovation. By aligning ORNL research capabilities, NGDCI can help identify the most urgent opportunity areas to help secure AI infrastructure and ensure the United States can build advanced AI systems on an energy foundation that is reliable and globally competitive.
UT-Battelle manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science .