May 18 (Reuters) - Power company NextEra Energy NEE.N will buy peer Dominion Energy D.N in a $66.8 billion deal, that would create the largest electric utility company in the United States as companies race to capitalize on a surge in electricity demand driven by data centers dedicated to AI operations.

The deal, which would be one of the biggest acquisitions in the U.S. power industry, adds to a wave of consolidation in the industry, as utilities race to bulk up their portfolios to cater to the unprecedented surge in power demand.

Florida-based NextEra is one of the world's largest energy developers and access to Dominion Energy's portfolio would enable it to expand into the PJM Interconnection region and capitalize on opportunities in Virginia, one of the biggest data-center markets.

The transaction builds on NextEra's efforts to tap into surging demand for supplying electricity to data centers being developed by Big Tech. Last year, the utility had signed an agreement with Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google to reopen a nuclear power plant in Iowa.

Virginia-based Dominion has nearly 51 gigawatts of contracted data center capacity and counts Alphabet, Amazon AMZN.O, Microsoft MSFT.O, Meta META.O, Equinix EQIX.O, CoreWeave CRWV.O and CyrusOne as its customers.

Dominion's Virginia service territory includes Northern Virginia's "Data Center Alley," the world’s largest concentration of data centers and one of the fastest-growing electricity markets globally.