American engineer Peter H. Diamandis recently raised concerns about China producing 40% more electricity than the US and the European Union combined.
In a post shared on X, re-shared by billionaire Elon Musk, Diamandis said: “China produces 40% more electricity than the US and EU combined. In the global race where energy = intelligence, we need to start waking up.”
Earlier this week, another American engineer, Rubén Domínguez Ibar, flagged a similar warning. In a post on social media, he explained that China is constantly expanding its electricity production at a pace unmatched by any other bloc. He further added that US production compared to China’s looks stagnant over the past decade.
Electricity is a real bottleneck for artificial intelligence (AI), factories, data centers and reindustrialization.
Those warnings were previously flagged by Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who said the country’s world-leading power grid could provide a big advantage over the US in the race to dominate AI.
Read also | China’s artificial intelligence is a risk for Europe. Avoid it as well
Musk on the limiting factors of AI deployment
In an interview with BlackRock Inc’s CEO at the World Economic Forum on January 22, Musk said, “The limiting factor for AI deployment is basically electricity,” adding that “very soon, maybe even later this year, we’ll be making more chips than we can turn on, except in China.” Musk’s xAI is building US data centers. He said China’s electricity growth is huge.
According to a Bloomberg report, US data centers will account for nearly 38% of electricity demand growth between 2024 and 2030, though only 6% in China. In addition, data centers will provide nearly 7% of total US energy demand by 2030, compared to 2% in China.
Musk’s comments echo sentiments similar to those of Huang, who noted that access to electricity is a potential point of difference between Beijing and Washington.
Read also | China’s AI: cheap electricity from the world’s largest grid
China dominates electricity production
According to a Bloomberg report, China has added more energy capacity in all energy technologies since 2021 than Washington has in its history. This includes 543 gigawatts (GW) in 2025, the report said, citing data from the country’s National Energy Administration.
He further added that China is likely to add more than 3.4 terawatts of power generation capacity over the next five years. It is estimated to be almost six times more than the US. In 2025, China’s electricity consumption, a crucial barometer of the country’s economic activity, will surpass the 10 trillion kWh mark for the first time, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced.
Beijing continues to add more and more new energy capacity by massively deploying renewables such as solar and wind, along with coal, nuclear and gas facilities.
AI Anthropic has warned of the US falling behind China
In May 2025, Silicon Valley-based AI firm Anthropic issued a warning that the United States was falling behind China in electricity production. The company that develops large language models Claude said the US artificial intelligence industry will need at least 50 gigawatts of power capacity by 2028 to maintain its global lead, calling the gap with China “disturbing”.
Antropic called on Washington to ease regulatory hurdles slowing down energy infrastructure projects. Citing a February 2025 report by Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance, it said China added about 400 gigawatts of electricity capacity last year, while the US added just a fraction of that amount, about a tenth of China’s increase.
