Neither immediately relieves demand, which forces data center developers to look abroad. While most of the US’s transformers come from Canada, Mexico and South Korea, US utilities imported more than 8,000 high-power transformers in 2025 through October from China, up from fewer than 1,500 imported in all of 2022, estimates WoodMac’s Boucher. This build-out “is going to be highly dependent on the import market,” he says.