Who bears the cost of time risk in AI infrastructure — As the AI build-out accelerates, long-dated leases, power commitments, and hardware cycles are colliding with short-term demand and rapid technology shifts. Time itself is becoming the scarcest asset.
(And what the winners do differently) — AI demand isn’t slowing, but execution is becoming the constraint. As 2026 approaches, more data center projects will quietly stall, not because capital disappears, but because power delivery, long-lead equipment, and sequencing risk overwhelm plans.
Seven charts reveal the forces that will shape the data center market in 2026 — from power scarcity to interconnection delays and the rise of private generation. These visuals explain what’s coming next.
Who will lead the next phase of the AI data center buildout? The 2026 Megaproject Leadership Index ranks the developers best positioned to deliver gigawatt-scale campuses amid power constraints, supply chain volatility, and rising hyperscale demand.
Five charts reveal the real story behind the data center industry in 2025 — from power shortages to supply chain strain to rising private credit. A light holiday-week analysis of the trends shaping the 2026 buildout.
AI megacampuses are accelerating across the U.S., but industrial land, zoning approvals, and community support are running out. A growing “AI Land Crunch” is emerging as the next major constraint on data-center expansion.
We used to fear running out of oil. Now developers fear running out of transformers. As AI and electrification push America’s grid to its limits, the quiet crisis isn’t megawatts — it’s the hardware that delivers them. Here’s why transformer scarcity is becoming the new energy bottleneck.
🕒 The New Commodity: Time-to-Power In 2025, the most valuable resource in digital infrastructure isn’t megawatts — it’s months. Developers and investors once modeled their projects around access to land, capital, and power purchase agreements. But a convergence of regulatory reform, grid congestion, and manufacturing scarcity has created something new:
Executive Summary In a sector where speed to market is as critical as cost control, the traditional focus on capex and latency is now being overshadowed by schedule risk—specifically, the risk of long, volatile, and opaque lead times. Equipment deliveries, key long-lead packages, and module kits are no longer
AI data centers are building their own power plants. The next competitive moat in digital infrastructure isn’t land or megawatts — it’s control over electrons.
Data centers are powering nearly all U.S. GDP growth — but the boom may be testing the limits of capital itself.
Executive Summary Permitting is now the most underestimated line item in data center development. While the industry obsesses over land banking and megawatt allocation, many projects are bleeding millions each month waiting on local approvals, zoning variances, or multi-agency environmental reviews. Across the top 15 U.S. markets, average permitting