Planned U.S. data centers delayed
Roughly half of U.S. data centers slated to start in 2026 now face cancellation or delays because of power constraints and shifting AI appetite. The shortfall in grid and generation availability is pushing hyperscalers to treat electricity and interconnection as core capacity constraints rather than routine procurement items (x.com/zerohedge).
More than half of the U.S. data centers planned for 2026 are now expected to slip, as developers run short of power and electrical gear. (bloomberg.com) The slowdown showed up late in 2025: developers added about 25 gigawatts of new U.S. data center projects in the fourth quarter, roughly half the third-quarter pace, according to Wood Mackenzie. (bloomberg.com) Construction activity also cooled. Capacity under construction in North America fell nearly 6% year over year in the second half of 2025, even as vacancy in primary markets dropped to a record-low 1.4%, CBRE said on February 25 and Utility Dive reported on March 25. (utilitydive.com) The bottleneck is not just land or financing. New campuses need transmission upgrades, substations, transformers, switchgear and, in some cases, new power plants before servers can turn on. (utilitydive.com) That is changing how the biggest cloud companies build. The Financial Times reported that Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft planned more than $400 billion in capital spending, largely on data centers, while power access became the gating item. (ft.com) Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said on a podcast interview cited by the Financial Times that “the biggest issue” was now power, not a shortage of computing chips. (ft.com) The scale is large enough to hit the grid itself. The Electric Power Research Institute said in February that data centers now use about 4% to 5% of U.S. electricity and could reach 9% to 17% by 2030. (powering-intelligence.epri.com) Some individual projects are already city-sized loads. The Financial Times reported that five U.S. facilities due from 2026 would each draw at least 1 gigawatt of electricity, about the output of a nuclear reactor. (ft.com) Developers are responding by shifting to regions with easier interconnection, locking in power earlier, and exploring on-site generation to bypass congested grids. (datacenterknowledge.com 1) (datacenterknowledge.com 2) The buildout is still huge: Wood Mackenzie said the U.S. pipeline reached 241 gigawatts at the end of 2025. The immediate question is not whether companies want more data centers, but which ones can get electricity in time. (bloomberg.com)
