Many utility companies are pinning their short-term hopes on “demand response” solutions that require companies to curtail activity at peak times.

AI model builders typically run data centres at full capacity during “training runs” — where they feed LLMs with vast amounts of data to improve accuracy. These rises in activity can clash with consumption from other customers — including households — during peak usage, increasing the risk of blackouts.

Companies including OpenAI have also asked US regulators to speed up interconnection requests for flexible data centres, arguing that it will help “reduce costs” for all users.

“We have to get smarter about using unused capacity on the grid,” said Daniel Eggers, executive vice-president at Constellation, a power company that supplies 2mn US homes and businesses.

Researchers at Duke University said earlier this year that if data centre operators could restrict their consumption 0.25 per cent of the time, the grid could accommodate about 76GW of additional demand. They cautioned that this would not replace the need to build new capacity.

Brandon Oyer, head of energy and water for the Americas at Amazon Web Services, said the company could tolerate some curtailment on a temporary basis, but did not consider it a “smart investment” to do so for a prolonged period of time. “Some customers might be able to tolerate that. Some customers might not. It’s going to be a very nuanced decision.”

A white-knuckle ride

The concern for hyperscalers is that this patchwork of measures will not be enough to power data centres coming online over the next few years.

In this scenario, a raft of projects will no longer be viable because they cannot meet contractual commitments. Others will have to simply wait for upgrades to the electricity grid and the construction of new generation capacity to be completed.

In a race between global superpowers, AI could be slowed down by decades old grid infrastructure and a failure to provide adequate capacity.

For some, the power crunch eases concerns of overbuild. For tech companies and the Trump administration, it may undermine billions of dollars in investment.

“We may not get all this done in the timeframe that hyperscalers would like . . . and they won’t be able to interconnect until we’ve got the resources to meet them,” said Nerc’s Robb. “It’s going to be a white-knuckle ride.”

After the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled in favor of Texas lawmakers last week, Republicans head into the 2026 election year with an edge in the redistricting fight kicked off by President Trump.

The court Thursday allowed Republicans’ new congressional map to move ahead — despite a lower court finding that the Texas legislature had likely conducted a racial gerrymander.

The map could yield five more seats for the GOP.

It is the latest major turn in the nationwide redistricting race, from California to Florida, that Trump started to help maintain Republican control of the House of Representatives.

If Democrats take control of the chamber, they could stymie the president’s legislative agenda and launch investigations of his administration.

The House is currently closely divided, with 220 seats held by Republicans and 213 held by Democrats. The sitting president’s party tends to lose seats in midterm elections.

At this point, it appears the redistricting battle could tilt about 12 or 14 seats toward Republicans and Democrats could counter with around nine seats pushed their way — but that all depends on the outcome of pending court challenges and state legislative votes. So a lot is still in play.

This week, Indiana lawmakers are meeting on redistricting. And in Missouri, petitioners face a deadline on signature collections that could block the redistricting until a public vote is held.

It won’t be clear if this all makes the difference in the House until votes are counted in the election on Nov. 3, 2026.

Trump started the race in Texas, California countered

States usually redistrict early in the decade after the decennial census determines how many seats each state gets based on their population. While states used to redistrict frequently in the 1800s and early 1900s, Trump’s push has set off a redistricting race not seen since the 1960s.

Last week’s Texas ruling followed a drama that played out this summer after Trump called on the state to tilt five seats toward the GOP. Democrats walked out for over two weeks to delay the passage of maps they said diluted the voting power of Black and Latino communities.

Democrats in California countered Texas by approving, with a special election, a map that could flip five seats held by Republicans there.

Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina voted to target a Democratic-held seat in each of those states. On Friday, the Indiana state House passed a new map that could help the GOP win two Hoosier seats. It goes to the Senate next, where Republicans are divided on the issue.

Some Indiana Republicans have been hesitant to follow Trump’s call, though he and Republican Gov. Mike Braun threatened to support primary challenges against those who don’t get on board. Several lawmakers have also faced anonymous threats to their families over the last few weeks.

It’s easier for Republicans to redistrict than Democrats

Republicans have more options for redistricting than Democrats. For starters, redistricting is done by state legislatures and Republicans control more legislatures around the country than Democrats. Also, some of the states that Democrats control have legal barriers to partisan gerrymandering — that is, drawing lines to benefit a party — or they have laws requiring that special commissions draw the lines.

Republican Gov. Mike Braun (in glasses, center left) and Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith in the Indiana Capitol attend a pro-redistricting rally last week that was organized by Turning Point Action.

Zach Bundy/WFYI

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Virginia’s Democratic-led legislature has voted to hold a special election that could amend the state constitution to allow redistricting. Another vote is required in January to hold the election in time. If it passes, the redistricting could tilt two or three seats toward Democrats.

The Democratic governor of Maryland has formed a commission to make redistricting recommendations. But that state already only has one Republican-held House seat to target.

Meanwhile, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is urging Republicans in control of the legislature to redistrict this spring and turn as many as five seats toward their party. A Florida House committee held its first meeting on redistricting last week.

But Florida has laws against partisan gerrymandering and could be limited by bans on racial gerrymandering in the federal Voting Rights Act. On the other hand, the Supreme Court is currently considering the VRA and could weaken it, allowing more redistricting that would likely work in the Republicans’ favor.

The VRA outlaws intentional attempts to weaken the voting power of minority communities by “cracking” them apart into new districts or “packing” them into one district.

US House member Ilhan Omar on Sunday defended the Somali community in her Minnesota congressional district, saying it was “completely disgusting” when Donald Trump recently referred to them as garbage.

“These are Americans that he is calling ‘garbage,’” Omar, a Somalia-born Democrat, said while responding to the president’s remarks on CBS’s Face the Nation. “I think it is also really important for us to remember that this kind of hateful rhetoric – and this level of dehumanizing – can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president.”

Those comments from Omar – who also spent some of her CBS interview discussing fraud cases involving Minnesota Somalis in recent years – served as replies to insults from Trump during a cabinet meeting. Beside calling them “garbage”, the president said Minnesota’s Somali community should be sent back to Somalia.

“Look at their nation,” Trump also said. “Look how bad their nation is. It’s not even a nation. It’s just people walking around killing each other.

“Look, these Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country – billions and billions.”

The Trump administration restricted all immigration cases for Somalis already in the US, along with people from 18 other countries. Community members expected the Minneapolis-St Paul metro area, where most Somalis in the state reside, to see increased immigration enforcement operations. And, as a consequence, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey recently signed an executive order prohibiting federal, state and local officials from using city-owned parking lots, ramps, garages and lots for immigration enforcement operations.

On Thursday, Omar penned an op-ed in the New York Times claiming that Trump was resorting to racist attacks because various campaign promises – including a better US economy – have been failing.

“While the president wastes his time attacking my community … the promises of economic prosperity he made in his run for president [in 2024] have not come to fruition,” Omar wrote in the Times. “The president knows he is failing, and so he is reverting to what he knows best: trying to divert attention by stoking bigotry.”

Attention on Minnesota’s Somali community ramped up in recent weeks as the right wing has seized on fraud cases in the state. Dozens of Somali residents were convicted in a scheme that involved lying to the state to receive reimbursements for meal disbursements, medical care and other services. The investigations into the series of fraud schemes spanned years – one of the most significant cases had charges filed three years ago.

One of the cases revolves around an organization called Feeding Our Future, which partnered with state agencies to distribute meals to kids. Federal prosecutors alleged that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the organization submitted fake documents to trick government officials into thinking they served food to thousands of children. The group’s founder was convicted in March. US House Republicans have since launched an investigation aimed at how fraud cases were handled by Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor who was his party’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2024 presidential election won by Trump.

Omar on Sunday said she was among the first members of Congress who called on the fraud in question to be investigated. She also said the fraud was “reprehensible”.

Furthermore, Omar denied Trump administration allegations that taxpayer money involved in fraud investigations in Minnesota was siphoned to a terrorist organization in Somalia.

The treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said his department was investigating whether the taxpayer money was going to al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization in Somalia. House Republicans have also echoed those claims.

“There are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced,” Omar said. “If there was a linkage in that – the money that they had stolen going to terrorism – then that is a failure of the FBI and our court system in not figuring that out and basically charging them with these charges.”

Bessent also said those involved in the fraud donated to Omar’s campaign. Omar said Sunday: “We sent that money back a couple years ago.”