(NewsNation) — Millions of Americans could suddenly lose electricity this winter as the nation’s power grids deal with increased strain, thanks to surging numbers of data centers opening across the country.

Energy watchdogs have pointed to an elevated risk due to typical stress from winter, as well as artificial intelligence data centers and population growth.

Texas, in particular, is in the spotlight just years after a devastating outage in the midst of a historic winter storm. Hundreds of thousands of new residents have moved to the Lone Star State this year, further straining its power grids.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation said Texas has enough power for normal winter peaks but still lists the state’s independent grid operator, Electric Reliability Council of Texas, as an elevated risk in cold snaps like the one in 2021, which left 4.5 million Texans without power for days.

Its latest winter reliability assessment says outages are unlikely in typical weather, but severe and prolonged frigid conditions could trigger shortfalls in some areas.

ERCOT’s latest outlook shows a slim chance of rotating outages during typical conditions, but a much higher chance if another major arctic blast occurs.

ERCOT says large load requests have nearly quadrupled in about a year, reaching roughly 250 gigawatts. That’s roughly the same as 200 large nuclear power plants’ worth of demand knocking on the door — and about three-quarters of that is from data centers.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas is still working to create a plan and play referee between the state’s data center boom and the sheer volume of electricity those industries need.