In the current year, data center capex is expected to be north of $400 billion, fueled by the current wave of AI hype. Some estimates have it closer to $500 billion, but generally, they are in the same ballpark. However, there is significantly more variance in the estimate of power consumption that these new data center investments will require, which is strange given that most of the new announcements have focused on the megawatts or gigawatts of compute capacity that will be brought online. The following graph, found in the Financial Times, charts the enormous variance in the estimates for power consumption. Like the current capex spending, they begin in a similar range – spanning from between 400-500 TWh, and…