Maya Barkin × Reyk Knühtsen × Jordan Nanos × Jeremie Eliahou Ontiveros

Mapping 400+ local instruments against 3,500 projects finds 300+ moratoriums but only three projects actively affected: AWS, NorthPoint, and CoreSite.Roughly 80% of live restrictions have no capacity behind them, leaving the forecast unchanged and making behind-the-meter power more attractive; New York delays roughly 800MW by 6–10 months, while an off-grid-blocking Texas-scale ban is key risk.

David Senra × Zach Dell

US electricity demand could rise from roughly 2% to around 10% annual growth, with AI accelerating an already broad electrification trend.Base sells electricity rather than $20,000 batteries, owning distributed assets that monetize wholesale markets while avoiding interconnection and transmission constraints; scaling Base Core and long-term utility contracts remain key milestones.

Robert Boswell × Jordan Nanos

PJM’s capacity-auction modeling—not data-center demand alone—is estimated to have made $12B of the $63B spent across its last four auctions avoidable.Constrained supply, “endless summer” demand assumptions, and pay-as-clear pricing amplify marginal scarcity across 66 million people, while a September or October emergency auction could commit up to $21B through 2042–43 if data-center load fails to arrive.

Drew Baglino × Lukas Biewald

Baglino argues properly designed AI data centers can lower electricity rates by raising grid utilization: 800MW average demand versus 1-2kW for a home, with storage absorbing training ripple.Heron Link’s 5MW solid-state transformer halves grid-to-chip losses, adding about 35MW of useful compute per gigawatt; the thesis depends on data centers funding interconnection and utilities avoiding overbuild.

Peter Diamandis × Salim Ismail × Dave Blundin × Alexander Wissner-Gross × Ramez Naam

AI’s binding constraint is grid interconnection, not generation economics: roughly 100 hours of annual load flexibility could unlock about 100GW of existing capacity, representing roughly $5T of data-center capex.Texas’s interruptible-load fast track and FERC’s broader push could catalyze near-term capacity, while solar-plus-batteries offer a roughly 12-month build path; winter seasonality, transmission bottlenecks, and uncertain further cost declines remain key risks.

Andrew Walker × Steve Gorelik

DNOW’s MRC Global merger creates a full-chain distributor with $75M targeted synergies and water, utilities, and data-center exposure.Buybacks at $10–12 and debt paydown support a cash-flow case, while the conservative-looking 2027 $350M EBITDA guide compares with roughly $400M on 2024 numbers.Reaching $30–32 by 2028–2029 from $16 depends on $300M 2027 FCF and re-rating, leaving ERP execution, macro recovery, and multiple expansion to monitor.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy × Matthew Smith

Matthew Smith’s model points to US natural-gas storage falling below all historical levels by 2029 as contracted LNG and AI compute outstrip deliverability, with electricity prices bearing the impact in 2028-2030.The market remains priced near $3.50-3.60, while Expand Energy and Range offer leverage to a potential physical-gas scramble; processing, pipelines, nuclear timelines, and consumer costs remain key risks.

Jeremie Eliahou Ontiveros × Reyk Knuhtsen × Ellie Holbrook × Jordan Nanos

The claim that half of 2026 US data-center capacity was canceled fails a denominator check: SemiAnalysis says early-stage options were mistaken for committed builds, while its forecasts moved less than 5%.The sharper bottleneck is execution at financed projects such as Oracle’s Project Jupiter, supporting more than 40 GW of behind-the-meter additions by 2028 but leaving gas, permits, equipment, and schedules as catalysts and risks.

Sarah Guo × Isaiah Taylor

Valar Atomics treats nuclear as a manufacturing problem, targeting a simple, intrinsically safe “Toyota Camry” rather than a bespoke paper reactor.DOE testing authority enabled its 100 kW W-250 to reach criticality, while passive heat removal and a seven-month milestone interval provide operating evidence.Equity-funded deployment could precede project finance, with AI as an initial catalyst and cheaper energy as the longer-term demand thesis.

Harry Stebbings × KR Sridhar

AI factories make electricity the binding input, and KR Sridhar frames Bloom Energy’s opportunity against a $5.5 trillion power market versus $2 billion of revenue last year.Oracle’s 50+ MW contract in 90 days and delivery in 55 days support the architecture case, while scaling from 1 GW to over 2 gigawatts by year-end leaves permits, gas supply, and customer buildouts as constraints.