America’s Data Center Build-Out Is Falling Way Behind Schedule
Google, which is raising a fresh $80 billion, has a strategy for getting around the biggest bottleneck
By Katherine Blunt, The Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2026
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Supply-chain backlogs, permitting fights and availability of power supplies are among the issues that have caused the construction of data centers to fall behind targeted timelines, with the gap growing wider in recent months: A JPMorgan analysis last month found that more than 60% of data-center capacity planned for completion in 2027 isn’t yet under construction, and another 7% is delayed…
In pursuing new facilities for its cloud operation, which brought in $20 billion in first-quarter revenue, Google has taken a novel approach to getting around some of the major bottlenecks facing data-center builders—in particular, the ability to secure the massive amounts of electric power they require. …
This year, Google became the only tech giant to own a power company with the $4.75 billion acquisition of Intersect, a wind and solar developer that in recent years pivoted to building such projects to support data centers. Intersect has energy projects under development to supply multiple gigawatts of electricity, Google said. One gigawatt can power hundreds of thousands of homes…
Companies including xAI, OpenAI and Meta have built or proposed building data centers powered by on-site gas generation. …
Federal regulators this week greenlighted part of the plan [for Microsoft to operate the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant]…
Under the Google agreement, demand-response company Voltus will pay homes and businesses to reduce power consumption during times of peak demand and make use of technology including home batteries and smart thermostats to manage that. The companies say the deal could create as much as 100 megawatts of capacity, which is roughly equivalent to that of a small power plant…[end quote]
I was stunned by the huge capex expenditures – but then I noticed that this chart was quarterly! WOW!! Holy Toledo!!
The AI companies are spending enough to swing the economy but in very narrow slices. Meanwhile, they are using many creative ways to get the power for the AI operation. There’s a lot of push-back by ordinary power customers when the rates go up because of AI data centers.
Wendy