The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that the artificial intelligence boom is transforming traditionally stable utilities stocks into high-growth investments. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post reports that since the end of 2023, the utilities sector has risen about 43 per cent, making it the third best-performing group in the S&P 500. This year alone, utilities have gained 20 per cent. Notably, the S&P 500 Utilities index has recently reached all-time highs and had never achieved back-to-back 20-per-cent gains before, based on Bloomberg data since 1990. The logic behind this rally is simple. If AI is going to be the growth engine of the U.S. economy for the foreseeable future, it will require enormous amounts of energy to power the data centres supporting it. So the companies that produce and sell this energy are going to benefit alongside the companies developing and deploying AI. Perhaps not surprisingly, the best performing stocks in the utilities index this year are independent power producers. Up until recently, utilities were considered a sleepy corner of the stock market, used for defensive positioning by investors because their high dividends generate reliable cash during downturns.