The AI boom has caused a huge surge in U.S. energy demand, and critics say it is stress-testing the aging grid, potentially raising electric bills and eventually causing outages.

Yet at TechCrunch Disrupt, industry insiders framed the pressure as an opportunity.

Apoorv Bhargava, CEO of Weavegrid; Tim Heidel, CEO of Veir; and Kristen Eberhard, VP of policy at Rewiring America said the flood of new connections is opening the door to grid modernization.

Bhargava noted that utilities are grappling with new variables — renewables, electric vehicles, data centers, and heat pumps — and that orchestration is key.

Weavegrid builds software to help organizations deploy energy efficiently and optimize connections to reduce utility bills.

Heidel’s company Veir sells superconducting power lines that can carry power five times farther than traditional cables while requiring 20 times less space; the startup recently raised $110 million in Series C funding.

Heidel said the scale of AI infrastructure investment is driving innovation and that new technologies should be adopted quickly so data centers can be good community neighbors.

Eberhard, who advocates for household electrification, said the urgency of AI-driven load growth has created an ‘improv era’ where industries are willing to try new things: more transmission lines, more centralized plants, and also solutions that were previously left on the table.