石油与天然气巨头正从人工智慧热潮中获得巨大商机。Williams 和 Chevron 两家美国能源公司积极向投资者展示数据中心对天然气与电力的庞大需求，将其视为重大利多。BloombergNEF 报告指出，受数据中心等因素驱动，到2030年代中期美国天然气产量需增加36%才能满足需求。

Williams 正在全美兴建六座专供数据中心使用的「表后」（behind-the-meter）天然气电厂，其中四座服务 Meta 在俄亥俄州的数据中心，总投资超过50亿美元。Chevron 则与微软签署了长达20年的购电协议，在德州建造一座2.67吉瓦的大型电厂，该公司同时创下六年来最佳季度利润。这些独立电厂让科技公司绕过漫长的电网接入等待期，但也引发严重的碳排放疑虑——仅五座电厂每年可能排放高达2,100万吨温室气体，相当于瓜地马拉全国的年排放量。

环保团体对此深感忧虑。地球之友副主任指出，科技与石油产业的结盟等于为本应逐步淘汰的化石燃料产业提供了生命线。这些长期天然气基础设施投资可能延缓再生能源转型，即使未来政策风向改变也难以逆转。此外，这些电厂是否最终会接入公共电网、对电价产生何种影响，仍是悬而未决的关键问题。

Major oil and gas companies are capitalizing on the AI boom by supplying power infrastructure to data centers. Williams and Chevron have presented this surging demand to investors as a significant growth opportunity. A BloombergNEF report projects that US natural gas production would need to increase by 36 percent by the mid-2030s, driven in part by data center energy needs.

Williams is constructing six behind-the-meter gas plants for data centers nationwide, including four serving Meta facilities in Ohio, backed by over $5 billion in investments. Chevron has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft to build a massive 2.67-gigawatt plant in Texas—the largest such project with a long-term contract. However, just five of these gas-fired plants could emit up to 21 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, roughly equivalent to Guatemala's total yearly emissions.

Environmental advocates warn that this alliance between Big Tech and Big Oil provides a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry at a time when it should be phased out. These long-term infrastructure investments risk locking in fossil fuel dependence and delaying the renewable energy transition for decades. Whether these islanded power plants will eventually connect to the public grid—and how that might affect electricity prices—remains a critical unanswered question for the country's energy future.