Elon Musk said the United States needs substantially more electricity to support surging artificial-intelligence demand, particularly through energy sources that do not depend on China. Speaking virtually at the G20 tech ministerial meeting in North Carolina on September 1, he contrasted US power-generation capacity growth of roughly 4% to 7% annually with China’s addition of approximately 543 gigawatts of new capacity in 2025, including about 315 gigawatts from solar. Musk said China is currently producing electricity at a rate of approximately 1,500 GW per year and deploying around 1,000 GW annually, and projected that its electricity output could reach roughly three times the US level in the near future. His AI venture, xAI, is deploying dozens of natural-gas turbines at its Colossus data centers (facilities housing computer servers) because they can provide power within months, while new transmission lines and nuclear plants generally take years to build. xAI is also pursuing solar and battery projects. Tesla and SpaceX are aiming to produce 100 GW per year of solar capacity in the US by the mid-2020s, compared with roughly 32 GW installed across the entire country in 2023. Musk also raised space-based solar power, where orbiting systems could receive constant sunlight, with SpaceX’s lower launch costs potentially improving its economics. US regulatory frameworks are being updated to ease co-location of data centers and power plants, while discussions have included building facilities in energy-rich, relatively inexpensive locations such as Saudi Arabia.