The financing package stitched together for Meta\u2019s humongous Hyperion data center campus in Louisiana made Alphaville curious about just how much energy the new AI infrastructure will consume if it all comes online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After all, massive new projects are being announced almost every week, in what even KKR\u2019s digital infrastructure lead called a \u201cbragawatts\u201d phenomenon in MainFT on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latest example is OpenAI on Thursday revealing plans for a 1+ gigawatt data centre hub in Michigan. Together with previously announced \u201cStargate\u201d projects this brings the total to over 8 gigawatts \u2014 close to the 10 target it floated earlier this year. This will cost over $450 billion over the next three years, according to the company that spends more on marketing and employee stock options than it makes in revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So how many data center projects have now been started or announced? Which ones will actually happen and which ones are fantasy? As Barclays noted last week, tracking \u201cwhat is real vs. speculative is a full-time job\u201d, but the bank has forced some poor sell-side plebs to at least tally all the announcements and collect some rudimentary details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what is the total so far? With OpenAI\u2019s Michigan project they now total 46 gigawatts of computing power. Apologies for the virtual shouting, but this seems a bit mad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These centers will cost $2.5 trillion to build, according to Barclays, to service an industry that still doesn\u2019t turn a profit. But the maddest bit arguably is how much energy they will require once completed. Using Barclays\u2019 1.2 \u201cPower Use Effectiveness\u201d ratio, all these data centres \u2014 if they are all completed \u2014 would need 55.2 gigawatts of electricity to function at full capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we also use Barclays\u2019 rule of thumb that 1 gigawatt can power over 800,000 American homes, it means that these data centres will consume as much energy as 44.2 million households \u2014 almost three times California\u2019s entire housing stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> Hyperscalers announced new data centres with 46GW of computing power
>Cost: $2.5tn to build
>Require 55GW to 65GW of base load electricity
That's more than the total installed capacity of Poland or Sweden, 6 times New Zealand or Singapore, 50% of UKhttps:\/\/t.co\/7j43C7QUwV<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/LrEfaKvpEk<\/a><\/p>— Assaad Razzouk (@AssaadRazzouk) November 4, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>