AI power battle: Who will shape the future of technology?

The Power Struggle in the Age of AI: Who Will Shape the Future of Technology?

Each great economic era has been defined by a battle for a single resource. In the 19th century, it was coal, upon which the British Empire was built. The 20th century witnessed the war over oil, shaping the modern Middle East and American dominance after World War II. By the early 21st century, semiconductors had become the world's most valuable asset, fueling Taiwan's development, increasing trade tensions with China, and forming numerous trillion-dollar technology giants. The next battle has begun, and yet few are discussing it in these terms. This time, the resource is electricity. Specifically, it's the clean, safe, large-scale electricity that AI workloads consume in gigawatt quantities.

Companies controlling electricity will likely determine the terms for the rest of the AI economy for the next two decades. Nations that own these electricity resources are about to gain strategic power not seen in a century. And a few who have locked down appropriate electricity capacity before the frenzy hit will soon be unrecognizable from what they are doing today.

Bitzero Holdings Inc. and the Electricity Battle

Among these players is Bitzero Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: AIBZ), a Canada-listed Bitcoin mining company with infrastructure spanning from Scandinavia to the United States. The company has just signed a binding 15-year, $2.6 billion agreement to host enterprise AI workloads at its facility in Norway. This agreement is one of the first clear moves in the battle that will shape the next global economic era.

The Resource Defining the AI Era

To understand why electricity has become the new strategic bottleneck, let's start with how much energy AI consumes. A single ChatGPT query consumes about 10 times more energy than a Google search. Training the next generation of large language models requires electricity equivalent to small towns. McKinsey's current industry forecast predicts that capital spending on AI data centers will reach approximately $5.2 trillion from now until 2030. Research from Goldman Sachs predicts that global data center electricity demand could increase by up to 165% by 2030 compared to 2023 levels.

This level of growth is unprecedented in history. The closest comparison is the early period of the Industrial Revolution, when the entire economy was reorganized around coal. The difference is the speed. The Industrial Revolution unfolded over a century, while AI development is happening within a decade.

The world simply doesn't have enough clean, reliable, large-scale electricity to meet what the AI industry is promising. Not in the United States, not in Europe, and not in Asia. This shortage exists everywhere, and the time to fix it through new generation, transmission, and interconnection will take at least 10 to 15 years.

The Battle Unfolding on Four Fronts

This battle is unfolding on four fronts. Each front is important in its own way. Together, they explain why the AI electricity economy of 2035 is being decided right now.

Front One: US Hyperscalers Are Spending Billions

The most visible front of the battle is in the United States. Hyperscalers have looked at the grid, examined their AI roadmaps, and concluded that the gap between what they need and what utilities can deliver is insurmountable in any reasonable timeframe. Consequently, they have bypassed utilities entirely.

• Microsoft has signed a 20-year deal to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, a facility that has been offline since 2019, specifically to serve AI workloads.
• Amazon has spent $650 million on a data center campus adjacent to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.
• Google has announced deals with Kairos Power for small modular reactors.
• Meta has issued requests for proposals seeking up to 4 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity.

These companies are committing billions to lock down clean electricity for 10 to 20 years ahead. Not because the electricity market is functioning well, but perhaps because hyperscalers have concluded that without guaranteed long-term electricity, their entire AI strategy could collapse.

Front Two: Europe Is Quietly Closing Its Doors

While US hyperscalers are racing to secure nuclear power plants, European countries with the world's best AI energy profiles are quietly ensuring their capacity remains domestically owned.

This is most evident in Nordic countries. Norway, Finland, and Sweden possess vast hydroelectric and nuclear power resources, in cold climates that reduce cooling costs, with stable governments and EU data sovereignty protections built in. For AI workloads, this combination is nearly perfect.

Norway has actually limited new data center operators to just 5 megawatts of initial allocation. A 5-megawatt allocation is only enough to run a small Bitcoin mining operation, nowhere near enough for an AI training cluster. Finland and Sweden are also tightening, prioritizing existing operators and domestic strategic interests over hyperscalers arriving with billions to spend.

Front Three: The Middle East Is Investing on Both Sides

A third front is emerging that few American investors are carefully following. Gulf countries, with sovereign wealth funds worth trillions of dollars, have looked at the AI energy race and decided they want a seat at the table.

• The UAE, in particular, is actively positioning itself.
• Phoenix Group, a publicly listed Bitcoin mining company ranked tenth globally by market capitalization and headquartered in Abu Dhabi, has been quietly building positions in critical AI and crypto infrastructure for years.

The involvement of these nations reflects that the petrodollar century is ending, and the AI electricity century is beginning.

Front Four: China Is Building Its Own Closed System

The fourth front is the most isolated and difficult to assess from the outside. China has watched the global race for AI energy and concluded that it needs to build a self-sufficient ecosystem, separate from Western supply chains and Western power constraints.

The Beijing government has poured money into building large-scale coal, nuclear, and renewable projects to support AI infrastructure within Chinese territory. It has also imposed strict restrictions on cross-border data flows, effectively preventing Chinese AI workloads from running on Western infrastructure.

The Winners Have Already Been Determined

In every previous strategic resource battle, the winners were determined before the broader market realized what was being contested. Britain's coal position in the 19th century was built decades before the rest of Europe realized the demands of industrialization. America's oil position in the 20th century was cemented during the first Texas oil boom, before the global auto economy became indispensable. Taiwan's dominance in semiconductors was built silently through the 1990s, before the smartphone era turned TSMC into the world's most strategic company.

For AI energy, existing capacity, in key jurisdictions, with appropriate cost structures and regulatory positions, will largely define the industry for the next two decades. New investors will face hurdles such as permitting delays, regulatory limits, local opposition, and increasingly constrained supply chains.

Investment Outlook

The strategic resource battle doesn't reward latecomers. It rewards those who positioned before the broader market realizes what's being contested. The AI energy battle is in its early stages right now. The headlines have emerged with Microsoft's deal at Three Mile Island, Amazon's pairing with a nuclear plant, and Meta's request for nuclear capacity.

The stories about AI infrastructure extend far beyond just semiconductors and electricity. As enterprises deploy increasingly valuable AI models across critical industries, securing those workloads has become as important as powering them. This has driven rapid development for cybersecurity companies like Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, and Zscaler.

Conclusion

Each economic era is defined by a battle for a single strategic resource, and the AI era is no exception. This battle is playing out on a global scale, and the winners have largely been determined, though the broader market has not yet realized it.

Bitzero Holdings Inc. is testament to this with its OneQode lease agreement, marking public confirmation that this strategic asset has long-term buyers willing to spend billions for it. The opportunity to position before the market fully understands the shape of this battle is opening up right now, but it won't last long.