The Compute Buildout

What you need to know

America's AI boom has become a construction and energy story as much as a software one. Hyperscalers are racing to lock down gigawatts of power and thousands of acres for new data center campuses, pulling utilities, local zoning boards, and grid operators into decisions that used to be purely a tech-industry matter. The open question our AI and energy desks are both chasing: whether the buildout's pace is a rational bet on demand or the early stage of a capacity glut, and who eats the cost if it's the latter.