The alpha, twice a week
That was 3 min.
Get the best new moments in your inbox every Wednesday and Saturday. It's free.
Check your inbox
We sent a link to your address. Click it to finish signing up. Not there in a minute? Look in spam.
or
The Information's TITV · 3 min · Oct 16, 2026
Power access favors experienced data center operators
Del Deo says established operators benefit from years of utility, supplier and municipal relationships.
In this episode
Full analysis- 29:53CoreWeave’s debt is layered around customer contracts6 min
- 58:29Michael objects to giving AI models authority over commandersPro pick 2 min
- 1:09:59Michael favors American open-source AI but flags China risksPro pick 4 min
- 11:29Palo Alto uses a harness to measure AI-assisted development4 min
- 41:10Power access favors experienced data center operators3 min
- 18:33Modal sees software as its advantage over neoclouds3 min
- 47:58Pentagon AI use grew from 80,000 to 1.7 million3 min
- 1:20:33Pentagon financing targets supply-chain gaps3 min
“tend to plan further out and can leverage that relationship and experience to get projects online on time.”
Takeaways
- Established operators use long-standing relationships to plan projects.
- Power constraints span generation, transmission, transformers and other equipment.
- Limited new capacity can help existing assets but crimp growth.
About this segment
Del Deo says established operators benefit from years of utility, supplier and municipal relationships. Power constraints may raise the value of existing capacity while limiting growth for fast-growing neoclouds.
Akash Pasricha, Host · Host, TITV
Led The Information's Pro subscription and co-wrote its flagship newsletter, The Briefing.
From “The Pentagon’s CTO Explains the Anthropic Rift and Superintelligence Task Force”, Oct 16, 2026. Watch the full episode
Answers “Is there enough power for AI?” See all 28 answers
Thanks. We'll look at and fix what's off.
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 41:15
well, I guess the N-Scale facility wouldn't have been able to get connected to the power supply as quickly as they wanted to. So of the companies you cover, you cover a lot of these neoclouds. How many of them are having issues or facing delays in their facilities because they cannot get connected to a power grid or supply of some kind? Look, it's a challenge across the data center space. Different players have been more successful than others. You tend to find that folks that are more experienced, so think of the brand names like Digital Realty, Equinix, GTS, and so on, who have long-standing relationships with the utilities, with key suppliers, with municipalities and so on tend to plan further out and can leverage that relationship and experience to get projects online on time.
- 42:07
I think disproportionately the challenges tend to arise with newer, less experienced players. So certainly N-Scale would fall into that category. They have tremendous ambitions, but a relatively short track record. But certainly, again, the biggest challenge across the data center space today is access to power and whether that's access to the generation, the transmission, transformers, UPS, whatever it might be, that whole ecosystem is the biggest single challenge to bringing capacity online.
- 42:39
So I'm just wondering the extent to which you think this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I mean, financing is one risk, like you said. Fundamentals are another risk, and the other risk is power here. I mean, if this continues, that's my view on it, at least. This could be it. Yeah, say that access to power, access to data center capacity is crimped across the board. I think what that would tend to do from a neocloud perspective is those with capacity in place today would probably be able to benefit from increasing prices, so long as your capacity is not under a long-term contract such that you can't actually reprice it.
- 43:21
Conversely, you wouldn't be able to deploy as much incremental volume as you would like to otherwise. So if you think about the value of these businesses, a combination of in-place assets plus future growth opportunities, further constraints in data center or supply coming online would probably help the former. It would help the value of your in-place assets, but it would crimp the amount of value that you can create from bringing new capacity online.
- 43:45
I think for a fast growing company like Acorweave or Nebius or however it might be, it probably nets out to a negative. Great. Well, Nick, I want to thank you for coming on.