Every data center company is after one thing right now: power. Electricity used to be an afterthought in data center construction, but in the AI arms race access to power has become critical because more electrons means more powerful AI models.

But how and when these companies will get those electrons is unclear. Utilities have been inundated with new load requests, and it takes time to build new capacity.

Given these uncertainties, how do data center companies make the high-stakes decisions about how much to build? How sustainable is the rate of construction? And how much will these data center companies pay for electricity?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Brian Janous, co-founder and chief commercial officer at data center developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Brian recently explained how he thinks about these questions in a LinkedIn post titled “The Watt-Bit Spread,” which argues that the value of watts is incredibly high right now, and the cost of those watts is too low. Shayle and Brian cover topics like:

Recommended resources

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.