Meta Platforms (META) is entering the electricity trading market to accelerate the construction of new U.S. power plants vital to its artificial intelligence ambitions, according to a report by Bloomberg on Friday.
The move into power trading comes after Meta heard from investors and plant developers that too few power buyers were willing to make the early, long-term commitments required to spur investment.
According to the company’s head of global energy, Urvi Parekh, trading electricity will give the company flexibility to enter longer contracts, which plant developers need to secure investment.
Parekh expects Meta to ramp up by leveraging external partners to help the company learn the business before it tries to enter electricity markets as a standalone entity, the report said.
Meta’s move into trading underscores the huge increase in power demand transforming the U.S. energy and electricity market, with tech companies racing to develop advanced AI systems that use massive amounts of electricity, the report said.
Meta declined to provide a timeline for the trading operations or further details on the expected structure for its trading.
Based on projections from BloombergNEF, power demand from data centers used to build and run AI models is set to quadruple in 10 years.