National Grid Partners' third annual Utility Innovation Survey, drawn from 134 U.S. utility innovation leaders surveyed between May 20 and July 7, found that 74 percent say AI-driven data center load growth is impacting grid reliability, and 78 percent are deploying at least one AI application to manage interconnection demand. Grid reliability has overtaken net-zero goals as the top industry priority, with 73 percent placing reliability in their top three concerns, up from 43 percent in 2025, while net-zero priority dropped from 54 percent to 16 percent. The survey also found that 83 percent of respondents said infrastructure costs for AI data centers are being passed on to residential customers. National Grid recently joined the AI Energy Management Alliance alongside Google, NVIDIA, Anthropic, and Emerald AI to develop policies for flexible, demand-responsive data centers.
The shift from net-zero to reliability as utilities' top concern signals that AI data center growth is reshaping how the power industry sets priorities and allocates capital. The finding that 83 percent of utilities are passing AI infrastructure costs to residential ratepayers has direct consequences for regulators and policymakers weighing how to govern data center interconnection.
A National Grid Partners survey specifically measuring AI adoption by utilities for demand management is directly relevant to the data center power demand story, offering quantified industry signal. This angle — utilities deploying AI to manage surging load — has not appeared in recently published stories.