Power — not silicon — now governs where, how and at what cost AI factories get built. This watch brings together the live power picture, live site intelligence, a research framework for energy-driven workload migration, and the placement logic that connects them.
Read the power signals first, then use site intelligence and placement logic to turn them into a location and workload decision.
Module 1 · Power Watch
Current grid, power price, connection, generation and procurement signals. Power — not silicon — now governs where, how, and at what cost AI factories get built.
+17%
U.S. DC demand growth 2025
AI-focused facilities surging +50%
~1/3
Behind-the-meter share
Of new U.S. capacity as energy islands
30–50%
Pipeline under construction
Of announced capacity actively building
49 GW
Persistent shortfall
Could persist through 2028
95%+
Nuclear capacity factor
Firm baseload, locked for 20 years
~$1.15tn
Hyperscaler capex 2025–27
Goldman Sachs estimate (CLM-TCO-006)
TWh · ~415 in 2024 to a projected 1,200 by 2035
Years from request to delivery
Target nuclear capacity by buyer (GW)
Target PUE (lower is better)
The largest buyers have converted nuclear into multi-GW baseload procurement.
| Buyer | Counterparty | Capacity | Type | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta | Vistra (Perry, Davis-Besse, Beaver Valley) | >2.6 GW | 20-yr PPAs, existing plants | Begins late 2026; full by 2034 |
| Meta | TerraPower (Natrium) | up to 2.8 GW + 1.2 GW storage | Sodium fast reactors | Power by 2032; target 2035 |
| Meta | Oklo (Pike County, Ohio) | up to 1.2 GW | Advanced nuclear campus | Phase 1 2030; full 2034 |
| Meta | Constellation (Clinton, IL) | 1.1 GW | Existing plant | June 2025 agreement |
| Microsoft | Constellation (Three Mile Island) | Unit 1 restart | 20-yr PPA, restart | — |
| Kairos Power (KP-FHR SMRs) | up to 500 MW | SMRs | First reactor ~2030; 500 MW by 2035 |
Manually reviewed developments in grid capacity and connection. Each card carries its source, publication and verification dates, and an evidence receipt.
The IEA projects global data-centre electricity consumption rising from about 415 TWh in 2024 toward roughly 945 TWh by 2030, replacing the earlier '1,000 TWh by 2026' framing.
The corrected trajectory sets a realistic horizon for AI-driven electricity demand and grid planning.
European data-centre power is projected to more than double by 2030, with Ireland already near a fifth of national electricity and hyperscalers turning to nuclear and hydro procurement.
Firm-power procurement and power-rich regions are becoming placement differentiators in Europe.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Queued Up 2026 edition reports more than 2,060 GW of proposed generation and storage capacity seeking US grid interconnection at the end of 2025.
It quantifies how large the US interconnection backlog is, but as generation and storage queue capacity — not delivered power and not a data-centre load queue.
Discuss power, location, cluster architecture and TCO with a CUDO AI infrastructure specialist.
