The most binding constraint in North American data center development is no longer capital, chips, or land, it is power delivery, and specifically the multi-year interconnection queues standing between a signed lease and a first megawatt online.
In April 2026, PJM reopened its interconnection queue after a multi-year pause that began in 2022 due to a massive backlog. CBRE's 2026 outlook names "power availability and certainty" as the top site-selection criterion, ahead of location and cost.
FERC's December 2025 order clarified behind-the-meter colocation rules, which we read as an implicit acknowledgment that the traditional greenfield model cannot keep pace with AI-driven demand on its own.
One asset class has been sitting in plain view of nearly every DC developer, colocation, and infrastructure investor working in North America.
The US pulp and paper industry holds over 10GW of interconnected power capacity across ~220 operating mill sites, concentrated in the ISOs where new-build capacity is hardest to secure. For the vast majority, these are not brownfields in the loose sense of "land that once had industry on it."
