Hundreds of large-scale datacentre projects around the world are facing delays or cancellations, as surging energy demands from artificial intelligence outpace power grid capabilities.
A local court ruling halted the Prince William Digital Gateway in Virginia, USA, after a legal brief argued the 2,000-acre site would mar a Civil War battlefield.
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A key backer has since pulled out.
The Uptime Institute identified 250 global datacentre projects exceeding 100MW in energy demand announced between 2021 and 2024.
It said approximately half of those projects will either not happen or face completion delays.
Mega-projects cancelled last year include Project Range in Arizona and the Cyberjaya campus in Malaysia. The Prince William Gateway is also on the cancelled list.
Jay Dietrich, a research director at Uptime, cited several factors working against proposed projects: developers without datacentre experience, lack of committed tenants, massive energy and water consumption, concentration in datacentre corridors, and supply chain issues for chips.
"The global supply chain just cannot support the level of projects out there, on the timeline that is projected," Dietrich said.
Local community and environmental opposition also plays a role, as seen in the Prince William case.
Uptime says we are entering an era of mega-gigawatt datacentres.
It identified six projects last year aiming for at least 5GW of power each – five in the US and one in the UAE.
Ireland’s peak energy demand is 6GW.
Taking planned projects announced last year alone, and assuming they run at 25% of planned power capacity, they would consume 1.3% of the world’s projected electricity usage for 2025, according to Uptime.
