some investors have started to express doubt that the US would ever be able to “grow” into its massive AI computing needs… with dire consequences for record AI capex budgets, something the market has yet to grasp.
*And unfortunately, with every passing day, the outlook for the US AI revolution looks increasingly more dim. *
That’s because, as Canaccord Genuity analyst George Gianarikas write two months ago, "the American data center boom is hitting a formidable wall of logistical friction." He is referring to the latest outlook by Sightline Climate, which is also reinforced by recent articles from Bloomberg and others, and reveals a sobering reality for 2026: nearly half of the nation’s planned 16-gigawatt capacity faces cancellation or delay, with only 5 gigawatts currently under construction.
That’s right: half.
This collapsing inertia stems from a volatile mix of local permitting hurdles, community resistance, and a desperate reliance on overextended global supply chains for critical components like transformers and helium.
The threat to AI stock mania is not so much lack of energy – though that is serious – but rather the global bottleneck of transformers, substations, switchgear, transmission lines and all the unsexy stuff we rarely think about, leaving aside the acute shortage of skilled workers in the US able to install and run such kit.
A single big campus in the data centre hub of Hays County, Texas – an area where I once played a lot of golf (misspent youth) and know well – can use 10 million gallons of water a day for evaporative cooling and power generation, draining the Edwards Aquifer that also supplies the Austin-San Antonio corridor.
“Nobody is talking about cooling; nobody is talking about water,” said Majumder, speaking at the recent Marshall & Stevens forum on energy infrastructure. “The farmers are not going to be happy at all about you pumping down their aquifer for cooling.”