AI-Driven Power Demand Surge Opens Growth Window for Berkshire Energy Business

On May 2, during the Berkshire shareholder meeting, CEO Abel discussed the development prospects of the energy sector, pointing out that with the rapid growth of the artificial intelligence industry, the energy sector is entering a new growth opportunity. Currently, half of Berkshire’s energy companies have begun to undertake electricity demand related to AI and are continuously tracking industry trends and the practical space for business implementation. Taking Iowa as an example, the company’s utility service area has significantly expanded, with four large-scale data centers built locally, bringing a large number of new electricity customers to the region. Currently, electricity consumption from data centers accounts for 8% of the peak load in the area, which is an extremely high proportion in the utility sector; this indicates that there is still significant growth potential for electricity demand driven by computing infrastructure construction. The company expects that in the next five years, the proportion of electricity consumption from data centers could increase by another 5 to 10 percentage points, and in the long term, it could even reach 50%, at which point it will become the most promising growth curve in the energy business.