China is rapidly outpacing the United States in electricity generation, a gap that exposes a series of connected problems America can no longer afford to ignore.
Data compiled by Our World in Data, a nonprofit research organization that collects and publishes data on major global challenges, shows the contrast clearly. Between 1985 and 2025, U.S. electricity generation, and electricity generation per person, remained comparatively flat. China, by contrast, expanded its power production at an extraordinary pace, becoming the world’s largest electricity producer.
The United States still generates substantially more electricity per person than China, a reflection of America’s higher energy intensity and wealth. But as artificial intelligence becomes central to economic growth, industrial capacity, and national security, total electricity generation is set to matter more, as both countries sprint to build more AI infrastructure.
According to Our World in Data, the United States generated 2,657.1 terawatt-hours of electricity in 1985, compared with China’s 410.69 TWh. By 2025, U.S. generation had risen only modestly to 4,519.79 TWh, while China’s output had surged to a staggering 10,583.36 TWh, more than double America’s total generation.
Thankfully, the United States still generates more electricity per person than China. But Our World in Data shows that China has rapidly narrowed that gap since the early 2000s, even as U.S. per-capita electricity generation has remained largely stagnant since 1985.
Why does any of this matter?
There is now a nationwide, bipartisan backlash against AI data centers. Chief among the concerns is the enormous amount of electricity these facilities require to operate. Many residents fear that data centers will drive up utility costs in the communities where they are built. While the data does not broadly show that pattern, the fear itself is increasingly the main driver of AI policy.
As many have pointed out, concerns about data centers, their water use, electricity consumption, land use, and broader economic effects, have become a vessel for deeper frustration with government failure. Instead of being directed at the infrastructure problems that government has allowed to accumulate for decades, much of that anger is now aimed at private companies, who are doing nothing different than what they've always done.
Rather than encouraging infrastructure development, embracing nuclear power, or breaking up the government-protected utility monopolies that dominate much of the country, state governments have imposed moratoriums on data centers and, in some cases, required them to generate their own electricity. There may be an argument for that approach, but it still fails to confront the deeper problem: the government’s long-running failure to build and strengthen the infrastructure the country needs.
America cannot afford to treat abundant electricity as a luxury, nor can it regulate its way out of an increasingly critical infrastructure deficit. The country needs more generation, a stronger grid, faster permitting, and a serious commitment to nuclear power and energy competition, not policies that punish the companies willing to invest in the technologies of the future.
China understands that electricity is industrial power. The United States needs to understand that too. If America intends to lead in artificial intelligence, manufacturing, and national security, it must once again make cheap, reliable, abundant energy a national priority.
