Google and Nvidia join an alliance that would fix curtailment terms before a data center connects
The AI Energy Management Alliance wants ride-through and curtailment obligations agreed before a facility connects, and it wants regulators to hand the customers who accept them a faster interconnection pathway.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
What happened
- Emerald AI, Google and Nvidia launched the AI Energy Management Alliance, a coalition for data centers that can dynamically manage their electricity use in response to grid conditions.
- Anthropic, NRG and Constellation Energy are among the other members of the group, which will be led by energy policy veteran Frank Lacey.
- The alliance is a reconstituted version of the Advanced Energy Management Alliance, founded in 2014 to advocate demand response for large electricity customers.
- Nvidia's announcement says power has become a defining constraint on the expansion of US AI infrastructure.
- A recent Johns Hopkins analysis of the PJM grid found that requiring data centers to accept occasional power interruptions saves over $15 billion per year.
Why it matters
- Who has to decide decision Anyone planning compute-heavy capacity gets a new question at the siting stage: whether to bid away firmness for an earlier connection date, before anyone knows what that obligation will be worth.
- Who's exposed exposure Allocating interconnection costs by actual system impact would leave inflexible customers carrying more of the upgrade bill, and a tenant whose contract forbids interruption cannot buy into the cheaper class.
- What it limits constraint A curtailment obligation fixed before connection narrows what the facility can sell afterwards, because it cannot promise uninterruptible capacity it has already pledged to interrupt.
- What doesn't add up contradiction Nvidia presents flexibility as the route to faster and larger connections; the Johns Hopkins work presents it as a saving for consumers. Neither one says who ends up keeping the value.
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"Flexible" has a specific definition inside this coalition. Nvidia's launch post lists the ways a data center can adjust what it draws from the grid: shifting computing workloads, discharging storage, using paired generation, or responding to system contingencies [12]. The alliance says it is technology-neutral and performance-based, judging a facility on response speed, duration, predictability and behavior during an emergency rather than on the hardware or software it runs [13].
Three of the four principles Nvidia published concern the interconnection process itself [27]. Ride-through, curtailment and contingency-response obligations would be defined before a facility connects [14]. Customers that make credible and verifiable flexibility commitments would get faster, risk-adjusted pathways [16], and interconnection costs would be allocated to reflect actual system impacts and benefits such as avoided upgrades [17]. The fourth covers standardized technical requirements, performance metrics and operational data sharing [15]. Interconnection was designed around facilities with flat, static electricity demand [11], and the alliance is asking for a second queue with conditions attached.
The savings come from peaks. Much of the cost of building and maintaining the grid, including gas-fired plants, is incurred to meet peak hours [24]. "It's when you get up to the hottest or coldest day of the year that you need that extra transmission line or need to build a new one," Abraham Silverman told Heatmap News [22]. Silverman, a former general counsel at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and an assistant research scholar with the Ralph O'Connor Sustainable Energy Institute at Johns Hopkins University, is not involved with the alliance [21]. "The savings to consumers if we had effective flexibility is enormous," he said [20].
Varun Sivaram, founder and chief executive of Emerald AI, told reporters in a briefing: "There are a lot of AI trade associations, data center trade associations, energy trade associations. This is the only one that is laser focused on flexible AI data centers" [3]. The academic case for that focus was published last year by Tyler Norris, then a researcher at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, who argued that much of AI data center electricity demand could be served by the existing grid with modest flexibility [25]. Norris is now Google's head of energy market innovation [25].
A trade group's principles bind nobody. The terms that matter appear in tariffs and interconnection agreements written by state commissions and grid operators, and those proceedings are already running. "Just about every state has some either legislative or regulatory process for looking at this," Silverman said [23], and Heatmap reports that state and local regulators have shown openness to a variety of approaches that could get data centers on the grid faster while minimizing grid impact [26]. Nvidia wrote that "The rules governing power for AI are being written now" [6].
Neither publication compares power against chip supply or capital, so the record does not settle which constraint binds hardest. But the largest buyers are spending their advocacy on the connection terms.
What to watch
- Whether a state commission or PJM adopts a pre-connection curtailment obligation with a faster queue attached to it.
- Whether the launch partners include the utilities and regional grid operators whose interconnection agreements would carry these terms.
- Whether the alliance publishes response-time and duration metrics a utility could actually meter and enforce.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption20
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives75
- Confidence60
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Emerald AI, Google and NVIDIA announced the launch of the AI Energy Management Alliance (AEMA), a coalition advancing data centers that can dynamically manage their electricity use in response to grid conditions.
- [2]
Nvidia, Google and data center software startup Emerald AI are founding members of the AI Energy Management Alliance, a trade group dedicated to promoting flexible load for AI data centers, announced on Wednesday.
- [3]
Varun Sivaram, founder and chief executive of Emerald AI, told reporters in a briefing earlier in the week: "There are a lot of AI trade associations, data center trade associations, energy trade associations. This is the only one that is laser focused on flexible AI data centers."
- [4]
Nvidia's launch post states: "Power has become a defining constraint on the expansion of U.S. AI infrastructure."
- [5]
Nvidia's post says flexibility can give utilities and grid operators greater confidence to connect AI facilities on shorter timelines, and can help unlock faster, larger connections for AI infrastructure.
- [6]
Nvidia wrote: "The rules governing power for AI are being written now."
- [7]
Nvidia described AEMA as a first-of-its-kind coalition.
- [8]
The reconstituted group will also include other energy and AI members such as Anthropic, NRG and Constellation Energy.
- [9]
Energy policy veteran Frank Lacey will lead the reconstituted group.
- [10]
The group represents the evolution of an older trade association, the Advanced Energy Management Alliance, founded in 2014, which advocated for demand response for large electricity customers.
- [11]
Traditional interconnection processes were designed around facilities with flat, static electricity demand, and were not built for computing infrastructure capable of responding when the power system is constrained.
- [12]
A flexible data center can adjust the electricity it draws from the grid in several ways: shifting computing workloads, discharging storage, using paired generation, or responding to system contingencies.
- [13]
AEMA is technology-neutral and performance-based, focused on the measurable service a facility can deliver, including response speed, duration, predictability and behavior during an emergency, rather than the specific hardware or software used.
- [14]
AEMA's principles call for defining ride-through, curtailment and contingency-response obligations before a facility connects.
- [15]
AEMA's principles call for standardizing technical requirements, performance metrics and operational data sharing.
- [16]
AEMA's principles call for creating faster, risk-adjusted pathways for customers that make credible and verifiable flexibility commitments.
- [17]
AEMA's principles call for allocating interconnection costs in a way that reflects actual system impacts and benefits, such as avoided upgrades and improved ramping capability.
- [18]
A recent Johns Hopkins analysis of the grid operator PJM Interconnection found that "requiring data centers to accept occasional power interruptions saves over $15 billion per year."
- [19]
PJM Interconnection covers large portions of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
- [20]
Abraham Silverman said: "The savings to consumers if we had effective flexibility is enormous."
- [21]
Abraham Silverman is a former general counsel at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and an assistant research scholar with the Ralph O'Connor Sustainable Energy Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and is not involved with the alliance.
- [22]
Silverman said of grid costs: "It's when you get up to the hottest or coldest day of the year that you need that extra transmission line or need to build a new one."
- [23]
Silverman said: "Just about every state has some either legislative or regulatory process for looking at this."
- [24]
Much of the cost of building out and maintaining the grid, including greenhouse gas emitting gas-fired power plants, is for meeting peak hours.
- [25]
The case for flexibility gained ground last year through an academic paper co-authored by Tyler Norris, then a researcher at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and now Google's head of energy market innovation, who argued much of AI data center electricity demand could be served by the existing grid with modest flexibility.
- [26]
State and local regulators have shown openness to a variety of approaches that could get data centers on the grid faster while minimizing impact on the grid.
- [27]
Three of the four principles Nvidia published concern the interconnection process itself (pre-connection obligations, faster risk-adjusted pathways, and cost allocation), and one concerns standardization.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- Emerald AI, Google and NVIDIA Launch Alliance to Advance Flexible AI Data Centers | NVIDIA Blog
blogs.nvidia.com
1 article · September 16, 2026
- heatmap.newsAI Heavyweights Team Up to Promote Demand Flexibility - Heatmap News
1 article · September 16, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- AI infrastructure power demand
- Grid Interconnection
- Data Center Demand Flexibility
Entities
- PJM Interconnection
- AI Energy Management Alliance
- Constellation Energy
- Digital Realty
- Nvidia
- Emerald AI
- Abraham Silverman
- Varun Sivaram
- Anthropic