Event · now
Compute and power bottleneck
Power as the project clock
Connecting a new data centre to the grid can take longer than building its computing halls.
The IEA identifies electricity as a local infrastructure constraint for data centres: capacity is concentrated in a few clusters while grids and generation expand more slowly than compute halls. The next scale-up is therefore timed not only by chip delivery but by the physical connection of megawatts.
Sources
IEA · Energy and AIOpen primary source IEA · key questions 2026Open primary source