America's Data Center Build-Out Is Falling Way Behind Schedule

America's Data Center Build-Out Is Falling Way Behind Schedule(wsj.com)

19 points by 1vuio0pswjnm7 2 hours ago | 10 comments

lacker 59 minutes ago |

"Falling behind schedule" doesn't really seem like the right term, for a sector of the economy that has been accelerating for the past few years.

You could easily describe this trend positively rather than negatively, like:

"Google has built an incredible amount of datacenters in the past few years, which makes sense since Google Cloud revenue has tripled since 2021. But they are trying to grow even faster and add more revenue."

arjie 1 hour ago |

There are few large scale US projects that don’t fall behind schedule so that’s not notable. It is notable that the demand-responsive pricing is so useful you can get 100 MW out of it by paying people for power in critical periods. And it is notable that a wind and solar company is Google’s other way out of this. How interesting.

Sooner or later the need for energy will become crucial. If it comes to war, then the US can build but if it comes to anything short of that, environmental concerns will dominate and probably make things unlikely.

It’s no wonder they want to put datacenters in space, calculating that it’s easier to solve the problems there than to solve the problems here. Though I’m surprised: are there no allied nations where we could put these things? The Trump admin has only been here since 2025 but opposition to these projects has existed locally for years. But universally? I imagine Japan or Korea, countries with less superstition around nuclear reactors, would have been happy to have done this.

duskwuff 58 minutes ago | |

> I imagine Japan or Korea, countries with less superstition around nuclear reactors--

Public opinion on nuclear power in Japan is not great, particularly after Fukushima. They just don't have a lot of other good options - as it is, the country relies heavily on imported coal and gas.

RajT88 1 hour ago | |

They are against them in Japan too:

https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/16198621

goda90 1 hour ago |

If these data centers are going to be so profitable, then it should be simple to make guarantees about clean self-power, closed loop cooling, and noise and light pollution mitigation. There definitely shouldn't be deals to avoid taxes while lying about job creation.

Maybe if they did those things, there would be fewer permitting fights.

explodes 1 hour ago | |

This is pretty much exactly my gripes, too. Data centers are necessary, but why are we doing this all the wrong way?

The new Utah data center is building new gas pipelines to generate 9GW instead of requiring ANY percentage of green energy, while also giving massive tax breaks that the families living nearby and statewide will have to cover.

For actionable information on this specific project, see:

https://www.breatheutah.org/news/the-stratos-project-questio...

prollings 23 minutes ago | | |

I keep seeing people all over the internet adding the caveat that the data centres are necessary in comments following stories about rollout (and often the stories themselves). But never why that's the case. So the question is why are more data centres necessary at the proposed rollout rates? What actually drives this demand?

protocolture 57 minutes ago | |

>clean self-power

Just clean and scale the grid.

>closed loop cooling

Just clean and scale your water supply. Remove all the lead that's clearly in there while you are at it.

>noise and light pollution mitigation

NextDC B2 has its phase 2 under construction right now, after the construction workers have all gone home theres no external noise from Phase 1. You can stand outside Equinix SY1 2 or 3 and you cant hear anything but road noise. Its a solved engineering problem. Any deviance from this can be interrogated locally. Its not a pertinent issue with Datacenters as a class.

bayarearefugee 1 hour ago | |

> There definitely shouldn't be deals to avoid taxes while lying about job creation.

The people making those deals are physiologically incapable of not attempting to benefit from socialized externalities to make obscene levels of private profit.

You might as well be asking them to voluntarily stop breathing or pay a fair amount of taxes, they just can't do it.

jmward01 1 hour ago | | |

The problem is it only takes one stupid municipality for them to get a ridiculous deal and, unfortunately, there are a lot of cities that don't have great representation. These companies probably only have to ask 10 different places for an obviously disastrous deal before one of this says yes. It doesn't take corruption, just odds.

lenerdenator 1 hour ago |

People aren't stupid. They have very valid concerns about what AI will mean for their jobs over the next 5-10 years. Since AI companies (and companies in general) refuse to offer any real solution to being permanently unable to use your skills to create value that enables your survival, people are shoving back.