Data‑centre delays and emissions risk

Nearly half of the U.S. data centers slated for 2026 are now expected to miss their timelines as the artificial intelligence building boom runs into physical bottlenecks. (networkworld.com) Sightline Climate said on February 24 that 30% to 50% of the announced 2026 pipeline is unlikely to come online before year-end. Network World, citing Financial Times reporting published April 23, said many projects are slipping by at least three months. (sightlineclimate.com) (networkworld.com) The shortages are not just in chips. Developers are also waiting on graphics processing units, memory, storage gear, transformers, switchgear and grid connections, while only about one-third of the capacity announced for this year had actually started construction, according to reports summarizing the market. (networkworld.com) (tech.yahoo.com) A data center is a warehouse full of servers, and an artificial intelligence data center packs in far more power-hungry chips than a typical cloud site. That turns a software race into a construction race for land, substations, backup power, cooling equipment and permits. (iea.org) (cnn.com) That scramble is now colliding with climate policy. WIRED reported on April 22 that 11 proposed gas-fired data-center power projects linked to OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and xAI could emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases a year if built and run at permitted levels. (wired.com) Several of those projects are designed as “behind-the-meter” plants, meaning the site makes its own electricity instead of waiting for a utility hookup. That can speed construction, but it can also lock in new fossil-fuel use even as tech companies keep public clean-energy targets. (wired.com) The International Energy Agency said last week that data-center electricity use surged in 2025 despite tightening bottlenecks, and that capital spending by five large technology companies topped $400 billion in 2025 and is set to rise another 75% in 2026. (iea.org) Local politics are slowing projects too. In Joliet, Illinois, hundreds of residents packed a March 5 planning meeting over a 795-acre proposal that local officials said could become the state’s largest data-center campus, with critics raising concerns about power demand, water use and noise. (abc7chicago.com) (fox32chicago.com) Not everyone expects higher power demand to end in higher bills. Big Think argued on April 22 that flexible data centers could help absorb surplus renewable power and improve grid economics if regulators require the right pricing and operating rules. (bigthink.com) For now, the immediate constraint is simpler: the artificial intelligence boom needs concrete, copper, turbines, chips and public approvals all at once. The delays show how fast the industry can order servers, and how slowly it can build the systems that keep them running. (networkworld.com) (iea.org)