Power crunch threatens to derail AI datacenter construction

A survey of datacenter professionals reveals that supply chain constraints and power availability are hampering the industry's efforts to scale datacenter capacity. Turner & Townsend's 2025-2026 Datacenter Construction Cost Index report, based on 300+ projects across 20+ countries and input from 280 industry experts, …

[Doctor Syntax]

Do those responsible for these projects never stop to wonder if all these delays are a hint that they're doing it wrong?

[Like a badger]

No, why would they? The stock price (or estimated IPO value) of a tech business goes up fabulously if the management mention AI, more so if they throw money at it. All AI firms believe they are in an arms race that they can't afford to lose, so it seems logical to their small and parochial brains. And the Ponzi scheme of issuing new stock to your hardware supplier to buy your product allows tech companies to create their own money.

In the short term concepts like ROCE, NPV, P/E, FCF are simply out of fashion, and in true bubble style all concerned have persuaded themselves not merely that financial physics has been suspended, but that it has been permanently cancelled. They are wrong, in the same way their predecessors were wrong in every prior asset price bubble and banking crisis, but I'm preaching to the converted here.

[abend0c4]

The stock price ... goes up fabulously

That may be about to change.

[Guy de Loimbard]

Do those responsible for these projects never stop to wonder?

I doubt it.

It's all take take take and no real thought about the how, or the impact., or should I/We do this?

It's very much like watching an arms race to the bottom!

[theOtherJT]

Just what we need...

...another thing pushing up the cost of electricity during a cost of living crisis. God this stupid bubble can't burst fast enough.

[Helcat]

Re: Just what we need...

Get an EV! Get a heat exchanger! Get more and more things that require electricity!

Oh, and get solar panels that can then feed into the grid, plug your car in on the tariff that allows the Grid to draw power out of the battery...

There was always an answer to the increased demand for power for these data centres: Pass the responsibility for household power production over to the households, then take power off them to add to the grid to power the data centres, all the while charging people for their connection.

Okay, I know it's one way to spin all of this, but it could become the plot of some diabolic villain's plan in some James Bond film. Wonder if they'd run with that. And could I claim royalties for the idea... (no chance - the government would claim it was their idea all along!)

[Pascal Monett]

"power availability"

They never stopped to think about that point before starting their humongous, multi-gigawatt-guzzling centers in the middle of the desert, now did they ?

Well, reap the rewards now.

[MeInKC]

I keep wondering when will it be enough? The data centers are popping up everywhere, and they just keep building. Farmland in Indiana, is no longer farmland, it's massive,ugly acres of concrete and they want more. In Pennsylvania farm country, one company is using eminent domain, because the land has been family owned for generations. They don't care about the family, or the legacy passed down. They don't care.

It will never be enough. At this rate, the USA will be unrecognizable in 20 years, if that long