August 25, 2026, (Inside AI) — The United States has overtaken China as the world's leading builder of new gas-fired power plants, driven by an unprecedented surge in electricity demand from artificial intelligence datacenters. According to a new analysis from Global Energy Monitor, under-construction gas capacity in the US jumped 76% in the first half of 2026, putting the country at twice China's construction level.
When announced and pre-construction projects are included, the US is building nearly three times as much gas capacity as China. Since January, total US gas capacity in development ballooned 50%, from 252GW to 378GW, representing a third of the global total. If all projects proceed, the US gas fleet would grow by roughly two-thirds at a capital cost exceeding $647 billion.
The shift marks a historic reversal. For decades, China's rapid industrialization made it the dominant builder of gas power generation. Now, a "frenzy" in datacenter construction for AI has flipped that dynamic, according to Global Energy Monitor.
"Six months ago, China had more gas plants under construction but that has now flipped," said Jenny Martos, a project manager at Global Energy Monitor.
"There has been an enormous surge in datacenter proposals powered by gas in the past year and the climate implications of that is huge. Building all of this gas for AI locks in decades of pollution and it is also locking in dependence on a volatile fuel cost, which will get passed down to rate payers," Martos added.
Around half of the new capacity is directly tied to upcoming datacenters requiring massive electricity for AI workloads. Relying on gas rather than renewables for this demand could increase US power emissions by up to 20%, according to one estimate cited in the report.
Political Rhetoric Collides With Energy Reality #
President Donald Trump and his administration have repeatedly argued that China's expanding fossil fuel use makes US emissions cuts futile. Trump has said of China, "their air is dirty, and it drifts over to us." But the AI-driven infrastructure boom, combined with the administration's rollback of environmental regulations, is changing that equation.
The International Energy Agency has forecast that US spending on coal and gas power plants will outstrip China's for the first time in decades. Meanwhile, China's rapid adoption of clean energy is accelerating, further shifting the global emissions balance.
The rush by tech companies including Google, OpenAI, and Amazon to build datacenters has created a backlog for the most efficient gas turbines. Several firms, including Elon Musk's xAI, have switched to smaller, less efficient turbines that pollute more heavily.
"Frankly, communities that don't take a datacenter, they're making a mistake because there's plenty of communities that want them," Trump said in remarks to his former lawyer Michael Cohen last week.
"Because it means jobs, and it means tremendous tax revenue coming into the towns and cities that take them," Trump added.
Local Backlash Threatens Datacenter Expansion #
Concerns over climate impact, rising power bills, tax breaks for AI companies, and water shortages are fueling local opposition. Two-thirds of more than 800 planned datacenters sit in drought-stricken areas. A recent Heatmap poll found that three-quarters of Americans do not want to live next to a datacenter, a sharp increase in opposition over the past year.
Dozens of cities and counties have imposed restrictions on new datacenters. In July, New York became the first state to enact a temporary ban on new hyperscale datacenter permitting and construction. Despite this backlash, which could hurt Republicans in the November midterm elections, the Trump administration has championed datacenter building and eliminated environmental reviews to speed approvals.
Trump said this month that "data centers could be bigger than oil" and urged state governors to cut taxes to encourage them. The administration's stance sets up a collision between national AI ambitions and local community resistance, with the outcome likely to shape both the energy grid and the political landscape for years to come.