On January 17, reports from the United States on the 16th revealed that, owing to the soaring electricity demand spurred by the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry, the US federal government, along with several state governments in the Northeast, has urged PJM Interconnection—the nation's largest power grid operator—to conduct an emergency electricity auction. The aim is to make American tech giants shoulder the escalating electricity expenses. In this particular auction, tech firms have the opportunity to bid for 15 - year power generation contracts for newly - constructed power plants. While electricity auctions are a routine practice in the industry, they usually only involve the auctioning of electricity supply for a one - year period. Moreover, this auction is exclusively tailored for tech companies that are in the process of building artificial intelligence data centers.