Shift Key with Robinson Meyer How to Understand America’s Gigantic Natural Gas Buildout
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Sep 2, 2026 
Emily Pontecorvo, founding staff writer at Heatmap News, investigates America’s massive natural gas expansion for AI data centers. She maps nearly 200 gigawatts of proposed projects, explores why tech companies are turning to gas, and examines turbine efficiency, emissions risks, infrastructure politics, and the tension between Big Tech’s gas ambitions and clean-energy commitments.
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AI Is Driving A Historic Gas Expansion
- Amazon’s proposed 7.6-gigawatt Texas plant and OpenAI’s 9.2-gigawatt Ohio project signal an unusually large gas expansion driven by AI demand.
- The Ohio facility could rival Dubai’s Jebel Ali plant and become America’s largest power plant.
Proposed Gas Capacity Nearly Doubled In Six Months
- Global Energy Monitor counted 189 gigawatts of U.S. gas projects motivated by data centers, nearly double the 97 gigawatts identified six months earlier.
- Existing U.S. gas capacity totaled 512 gigawatts, making the proposed addition enormous.
Gas Plans May Double Count AI Demand
- The broader U.S. pipeline contains 378 gigawatts of planned gas generation, though some projects may duplicate requests that shifted from grid connections to off-grid plans.
- Developers can count the same demand through multiple pathways.