A lot of the AI companies are also the major cloud providers, i.e. existing large consumers of electricity. Google could entice someone to invest in generation

A lot of the AI companies are also the major cloud providers, i.e. existing large consumers of electricity. Google could entice someone to invest in generation capacity for a new AI datacenter by agreeing to buy their output for a few years, or building their own generation. Then if the AI thing doesn't work out, use that power for their existing data center uses, i.e. move the existing servers into the AI data center. That would be essentially shifting the risk to the power company in the location where the existing data center is, even if that's not the same one they have the power purchase agreement with.