The data centers powering your favorite AI chatbot are running low on helium, cash, and neighbors who don’t hate them — and that’s not even the worst of it.
According to new reporting by Bloomberg, about half of the data centers slated to open in the US in 2026 will either face delays or outright cancellations.
The publication interviewed analysts at market intelligence company Sightline Climate, who noted that 12 gigawatts worth of power-consuming data centers are set to open this year in the country. But here’s the catch: they say only a third of those are actually under construction right now, with the rest in a liminal pre-production stage in which they could — and likely will be — canceled.
It’s not just a problem for data centers planned for 2026, either. Among data centers slated to open in 2027, only about 6.3 gigawatts worth of computing infrastructure are actually under construction, compared to 21.5 announced gigawatts.
Things get even dodgier in the coming years, with the vast majority of data centers planned for launch between 2028 and 2032 having yet to even break ground. There are a further 37 gigawatts of planned infrastructure which haven’t even received a firm completion date, only 4.5 of which have actually begun work.
Those delays, it seems, are due to a key bottleneck: electrical components manufactured abroad. Batteries, electrical transformers, and circuit breakers all make up less than 10 percent of the cost to construct one data center, but as Andrew Likens, energy and infrastructure lead at Crusoe’s told Bloomberg, it’s impossible to build new data centers without them.
“If one piece of your supply chain is delayed, then your whole project can’t deliver,” Likens said. “It is a pretty wild puzzle at the moment.”
As demand for those components far outpaces supply in the US, data center firms have had to source those components from manufacturers in Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and China. That leads to longer build times as those complicated parts are sewn together with assemblages of other, smaller parts, before being shipped across the ocean, and eventually trucked to the final construction site.
“We’ve seen firsthand the value it can create if you are not hamstrung by electrical infrastructure lead times,” Crusoe’s Likens told Bloomberg. “They can make or break a project.”
More on data centers: Data Centers Causing Huge Temperature Spikes for Miles Around Them, Study Suggests
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