Deep|AIDC: 2027 Demand Runs at Roughly 2x Deliverable Supply, and the Binding Constraint Is Power

Executive Summary

North American AI data center demand in 2027 runs to roughly 35GW on an IT basis, against 16.5-23.4GW that can actually be delivered. Where our two independent supply methods overlap, that gap is 1.8-2.1x, and it is the number this whole report is built around.

Demand cross-checks two ways and lands in the same place. A CoWoS-capacity build gives 44-49GW of global chip-level power in 2027; a platform-by-platform BOM build gives 48.4GW. The market debates 40-60GW. We assume roughly 50GW globally, with North America taking about two-thirds.

Supply is already locked, and capital cannot move it. The grid path delivers 11-14GW IT, set entirely by who entered the interconnection queue before mid-2025; an application filed today does not make 2027. Behind-the-meter equipment adds 5.5-9.4GW IT net of overlap, but large gas turbine slots are sold out through 2031 on a four-to-five-year order-to-COD cycle, so a frame ordered now becomes supply in 2030-32.

Power delivery is the binding constraint, and it sits upstream of everything a sponsor can pay to accelerate. Permitting killed 78% of the 43GW of stranded projects. Power-side causes explain 60-70% of MW-weighted slippage over the past 12 months. Below that sits licensed labor: a journeyman electrician takes 10,000 hours to train, and only about 30% of MEP workers are in the regions holding 70% of projects. Modular construction compresses the build but not the queue, cutting COD slip probability by only 10-20%.

Scarcity is already visible in price. ARR per GW spans $8.3b to $50b across the four players we compare, and NBIS has signed at 3-4x its installed-base unit price within 18 months. The violent repricing of Q1 and Q2 is over; from 26Q4 we expect stabilization with modest increases, and rents down roughly 20-30% by generation as supply lands, with utilization staying high.

Four routes to power, four different risks. xAI buys speed with 2x power cost and permitting risk, on the shortest contracts of the four; CRWV converts power delivery risk into refinancing risk; NBIS runs on customer prepayments and is the clearest evidence of the price move; IREN sits on legacy energized capacity with the best cost of capital of the four, but its incremental capacity queues like everyone else’s.

I. Where Things Stand Today

The whole US market fits into a single funnel (Aterio project database, July 2026 edition):