As the use of artificial intelligence expands its reach in society, the demand for data centers and the energy they consume is increasing rapidly across the country.

Chicago-based Exelon is one of the nation’s largest utility companies. It serves nearly 11 million customers with six different transmission and distribution utilities covering five states and the District of Columbia.

A presentation made at a May 2025 earnings conference call for the company’s investors shows just how much data center demand factors into its planning for future growth.

The company already had plans for connection with 16 gigawatts (GW) of capacity from data centers and other “high density” loads at the end of last year. Now, it expects that pipeline to double, with another 16 GW of interconnection requests.

Exelon notes that it already serves about 200 data centers throughout its territories. The city of Chicago, which is serviced by the Exelon utility ComEd, has about 120 facilities and is considered one of the top data center markets in the country.

According to Exelon, the northern Illinois data center market has shot up in recent years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 24% since 2022, up from only 9% for the previous seven years.

Major companies announcing data center projects in the Exelon service area include Microsoft, fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty, CyrusOne, Compass Datacenters and Aligned Adaptive Data Centers.

Exelon notes that the expected increase in demand from the pending data centers will necessitate the spending of an additional $15 billion on transmission infrastructure that isn’t already included in its $38 billion transmission budget.

This trend is expected to increase for many utilities across the country. According to the 2024 Report on U.S. Data Center Energy Use published by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, data center load growth has tripled over the past decade and is projected to double or triple again by 2028.

Data centers will also take up a larger share of total energy consumption in the United States. The DOE report finds that data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and are expected to consume approximately 6.7% to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028. According to the report, total data center electricity usage climbed from 58 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2014 to 176 TWh in 2023 and is estimated to reach between 325 and 580 TWh by 2028.