TL;DR

  • Grid Constraints Suppress Pipeline: Announced US data center power demands exceed peak grid capacity, but interconnection delays will prevent most projects from being built
  • Behind-the-Meter Power Shift: With 40 percent of AI data centers facing power limits by 2027, operators are turning to on-site generation to bypass long queue times
  • Blind Efficiency Verification: Skepticism over unverified vendor energy claims requires predictions against withheld operational data to prove performance

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Written by iMiller Public Relations on Behalf of Physical Superintelligence (PSI).

Announced data center projects in the United States total roughly 780 gigawatts, surpassing the country’s all-time peak load of 759 gigawatts set in July 2025. Although market demand for compute power remains high, PSI’s Scott Charter sheds light on the factors keeping a significant portion of this planned pipeline from materializing; chief among them, critical power availability and interconnection bottlenecks. Across nearly every market outside China, the central obstacle to expanding compute capacity lies in grid transmission backlogs rather than a willingness to construct power generation. 

To avoid multi-year interconnection queues, expansion in terrestrial compute through 2029 will increasingly adopt behind-the-meter, on-site generation. This transition aligns with projections showing that 40 percent of existing AI data centers will be operationally constrained by power by 2027, with global compute infrastructure likely hitting a definitive power wall within five to seven years. 

Simultaneously, vendor energy efficiency claims face widespread skepticism due to a market for lemons dynamic, as unverified percentage metrics prompt buyers to discount assertions to zero. Overcoming this skepticism requires rigorous verification, such as submitting predictions against withheld data from specific halls or operational periods before those datasets are revealed


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