America is building datacenters faster than the grid can power them
- ID
- 24738
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 16 Sep 2026, 12:37 AM
- Fetched
- 16 Sep 2026, 12:37 AM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/09/15/america-is-building-datacenters-faster-than-the-grid-can-power-them/5296608
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 6.5
- Created
- 16 Sep 2026, 12:42 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_ml_learnerssaas_startup_founders
What happened
A Moody's report estimates US datacenter power demand will hit 426 TWh by 2030, nearly double 2025 levels, requiring ~$110 billion in new generation and adding $25-30 billion/year to electricity system costs. Jefferies reported half of planned 2026 US datacenter capacity won't come online this year due to power availability, grid connection delays, permitting, and equipment lead times of up to seven years.
Why it matters
If you're planning AI infrastructure or cloud capacity in the next 3-5 years, assume US datacenter availability and pricing will tighten as power constraints bite—this pushes workload placement decisions toward regions with surplus grid capacity (including Southeast Asia) and makes power availability a first-class criterion in cloud region selection, not just latency or cost.
Discussion angle
For Malaysian builders: does US grid congestion make Johor or other Malaysian datacenter corridors more attractive for regional AI workloads, and should startups factor power-constrained US capacity into their cloud region strategy now?