Building a data center used to be complicated. Now it’s an exercise in patience that would humble a geologist. Bernstein, the research firm, reports that clearing the current 338 GW pipeline of planned data center projects now takes an estimated 12 years, up from 10 years just a month ago.
That two-year jump in a single month tells you something important: the bottleneck isn’t capital, and it isn’t ambition. It’s the physical reality of connecting enormous power loads to grids that weren’t designed for them.
Why the pipeline keeps growing while projects stand still
Global data center capacity sits at roughly 100 GW today. The projection is for that number to double to 200 GW by 2030. In English: the world needs to build as much data center infrastructure in the next five years as it built across the entire history of the industry.
Interconnection and permitting processes in critical U.S. regions now take anywhere from five to over 12 years. More than 60% of planned data center capacity targeted for 2027 is not yet under construction.
