Morgan Stanley estimates 70 GW power shortfall for US data centers by 2028

The AI buildout's biggest bottleneck is shifting from chips to electricity, and converted Bitcoin mines are part of the proposed fix Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Byrd calculated that US data center developers face a 70-gigawatt power shortfall through 2028. The numbers behind the gap The shortfall is a function of demand outrunning supply at a startling pace. Morgan Stanley now projects total US data center power demand of 97 GW through 2028. That figure is a 43% jump from the bank’s earlier estimate of 68 GW. The upgrade reflects rising chip shipments and increasingly power-hungry rack systems, including Nvidia’s. The shortfall estimate itself has climbed as the modeling evolved. An earlier pre-solutions calculation put the gap at approximately 57 GW. Later modeling pushed that figure to 70 GW. Then comes the mitigation math. After accounting for onsite generation options, such as gas turbines, Bloom Energy fuel cells and nuclear co-location, the research puts the net shortfall at around 33 GW. That remaining gap would represent about 34% of projected total demand. The outlook does not improve with time, either. Forward modeling suggests the gap could widen to between 68 and 72 GW by ...