With the emergence of artificial intelligence, data center construction has surged with plans for more to become operational in the coming years. The growth of data centers poses challenges to the electric grid with important implications for retail electricity prices and inflation. Even a modest data center boom could substantially raise retail electricity prices and hence annual inflation. For example, under plausible assumptions about the data center build-out and utilization, annual PCE inflation in 2030 would increase by between 0.04 and 0.13 percentage points. Slower-than-expected growth of renewable energy sources—wind and solar—could nearly double the inflationary effect. This analysis, while tentative, is the first attempt to quantify these inflationary effects using a model of electricity markets grounded in detailed data about all existing and planned data centers and all power plants in the U.S., including planned additions, retirements and upgrades. The model also draws on fuel price and power demand forecasts generated by the Energy Information Administration and proprietary data on the power use of data centers.