Power Delivery and Financing Risks Remain Central Despite Data-Center Capacity Commitments

SB Energy illustrates the execution challenge facing the data-center sector. The company reported 8.8 GW of contracted IT capacity, of which 0.8 GW is under construction and 8 GW has not yet started construction. Its operational data-center capacity remains zero. Approximately 8 GW of the contracted IT capacity is concentrated in an Ohio campus leased by OpenAI under a 20-year agreement.

SB Energy expects to require about $174 billion of investment in data-center construction over approximately the next six years. The figure represents anticipated future funding requirements rather than capital already deployed. The company’s position highlights that long-term contracted demand does not eliminate construction, power-delivery or financing risk.

Power infrastructure is also affecting project schedules and contractual structures. Oracle has said that the Project Jupiter data center and its supplying microgrid in New Mexico are adjacent but separate facilities operated by different companies. The pipeline intended to supply the project has been delayed until February 2027 because of route-permitting issues. Oracle has sought to retain the right to defer payments if the facility is not delivered on time, leaving the commercial impact of the energy delay unresolved.

Elsewhere, developers and energy companies are pursuing generation-led approaches, but these remain prospective. DayOne and a Tenaga Nasional Berhad generation subsidiary are studying up to 1.5 GW of generation with energy storage in Selangor, subject to feasibility work and approvals. In Japan, JERA, Dell and RHAELM have signed a memorandum to prepare AI infrastructure of up to 400 MW in Chiba, with a target commissioning timeframe around 2028. Neither project represents available capacity.

The supply backdrop remains tight. CBRE data cited in the source put vacancy across eight major North American data-center markets at 1.4% in the first half of 2026, while more than 80% of capacity under construction had been preleased. Morgan Stanley has raised its forecast for new US data-center electricity demand in 2026-2028 to 97 GW and estimates a residual cumulative power shortfall of about 33 GW by 2028. Those estimates are forecasts, not observed market outcomes.

Oracle’s disclosed buildout and funding figures further show the capital intensity of delivery. As of September 2026, the company said that 75% of total project capacity at its Abilene, Texas, data center had been delivered. It reported $28.5 billion in capital cash expenditure and approximately $11.4 billion in customer prepayments with a significant financing component in its latest fiscal quarter.

Taken together, these developments suggest that the market could increasingly differentiate between sites with operating revenue and confirmed power supply, which may be easier to finance, and large future campuses whose delivery depends on permits, interconnection or self-generation, tenant prepayments and external guarantees. High demand and preleasing may support project pipelines, but they do not remove the risk that power and infrastructure timelines delay actual commissioning.