US Federal regulators on Thursday agreed to let large energy users connect more quickly to the nation's inefficient electric transmission system to accommodate surging demand from power-hungry artificial intelligence (AI) data centres.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright had urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to act, in an effort to help the United States better compete with China for superiority in the fast-growing AI sector. Tech companies and data centre developers have welcomed the chances for faster connections to the country's power supply.

But utilities, states and regional grid operators worried that the Republican administration's plan would remove their authority to manage the process. Clean-energy advocates want the agency to advance, rather than undermine, state-level efforts to require the use of renewable energies.