【By Observer News, Chen Sijia】Driven by the AI boom, U.S. tech companies are increasing investments in data centers to provide the computing power needed for AI technology development. However, a series of issues such as aging power infrastructure and slow transmission line construction are hindering the development of U.S. data centers.

"One of the power bottlenecks in the development of AI in the United States is the winding worker," reported The Wall Street Journal on December 16. With the rapid growth of power demand, the demand for power transformers has surged in recent years, leading to a backlog of orders at transformer factories. However, due to a shortage of skilled workers in the U.S., factories struggle to find experienced winding workers needed to manufacture large transformers, causing a bottleneck in the expansion of the U.S. power grid.

In the transformer factory of Hitachi Energy located in South Boston, Virginia, 65-year-old winding worker Robin Cisco is responsible for winding wires around large cylinders, which will eventually become core components of power transformers. It takes four to six weeks to build a large transformer at this factory, and customer orders have been scheduled for several years ahead due to the recent surge in demand.

Transformers are used to increase the voltage from power plants to transmit electricity to the grid or to reduce the voltage for use by cities, factories, data centers, oil and gas facilities, and other customers. Every time a new power source or major customer is connected to the grid, new transformers are required.

Data from energy research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie shows that due to the AI boom, the demand for large transformers in the U.S. has surged this year, with orders exceeding supply by about 14,000 units. Hitachi Energy's South Boston, Virginia factory has implemented a three-shift work system and invested 457 million dollars to build a new factory to expand production capacity.

Employees at Hitachi Energy's South Boston, Virginia factory are inspecting transformer coils. The Wall Street Journal

However, the production of transformers in the U.S. is facing a labor shortage, with a lack of enough winding workers. According to the report, the expansion of the U.S. power grid relies on workers like Cisco, but their skills take three to five years to master and cannot be fully automated. A shortage of skilled workers and specialty materials has become one of the bottlenecks limiting the expansion of the U.S. power grid.

Cisco has worked at Hitachi Energy's factory for nearly 15 years, and she told The Wall Street Journal: "I occasionally still encounter difficulties. The first thing I tell my apprentice is: this job is not for everyone."

Another winding worker, Derrick Petty, said he worked at other transformer factories for 14 years and has been working at Hitachi Energy's factory for almost a year, but he is still learning the tricks of the trade, "It's not like a hamburger shop. These coils aren't all the same. No two people are the same, and no two coils are the same. I've seen people come here and then walk away."

Anthony Allard, head of Hitachi Energy in North America, said: "Please believe me, they are artists. This is an extremely manual job because they must be extremely precise, otherwise the equipment may have some problems later."

Job postings are posted along the roads outside Hitachi Energy's South Boston factory. The Wall Street Journal

Wood Mackenzie estimates that the supply of smaller distribution transformers is even more tight, and the gap in distribution transformers in the U.S. could reach 123,000 units this year. These transformers are installed on bases and utility poles, helping to deliver power to residential areas and businesses. While the production of these transformers can be partially automated, it also requires manual labor, and U.S. factories usually produce hundreds of units per day.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out that in the twenty years before 2020, U.S. power demand remained basically stagnant, and power equipment manufacturers had no incentive to increase output. But now, the weak U.S. manufacturing industry cannot meet the surge in transformer demand, and 80% of the large transformers needed in the U.S. this year will depend on imports, and about 50% of distribution transformers will also rely on imports.

ICF, an American consulting company, estimates that, driven by data centers and industrial growth, U.S. power demand will increase by 25% between 2023 and 2030. The U.S. Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory stated that by 2028, data center electricity consumption will account for about 12% of the total electricity consumption in the U.S.

However, Benjamin Boucher, senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie, pointed out that the U.S. is facing difficulties in procuring materials such as grain-oriented electrical steel and high-purity insulating copper wire, and there are also challenges in hiring workers and increasing factory production. "Transformers require highly specialized labor, but the U.S. currently just doesn't have enough labor."

U.S. tech giants continue to increase investments in data centers to provide the computing power required for AI, but aging power infrastructure and slow transmission line construction are hindering the development of U.S. data centers. Bloomberg published an article on November 10 stating that two data centers in San Jose, California, the headquarters of NVIDIA, have been vacant for years due to local power shortages.

One of the developers of the data center, Digital Realty, said Jordan Sadler, a spokesperson, "Waiting for 3 years to obtain energy is normal in half of the U.S., and in high-demand areas such as Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia, the waiting time is even longer." "In San Jose, if you find a piece of land today and start applying for new power, you might have to wait for several years," Sadler said, "We don't want to fall behind."

Bloomberg estimates that by 2035, the power demand for AI computing in the U.S. alone could more than double. Power supply is becoming the biggest bottleneck for U.S. data centers, mainly due to aging power grid infrastructure, slow transmission line construction, and various regulatory and licensing obstacles. "This highlights a significant challenge in the U.S. tech industry, as well as in the broader economy."

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Original: toutiao.com/article/7584790853642715658/

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