US data center plans pass 415 GW as Big Tech spending nearly doubles
WattSaid™ weekly brief ·
We read our own boards and write down what moved. The figures below are what WattSaid showed on the morning of 26 October 2026; each one carries the date or period it describes. Our last brief was on 13 October, so this one covers two weeks.
Data center plans keep growing
Announced US data center capacity on the board rose from 385.6 GW on 14 October to 415.1 GW on 26 October, 29.5 GW in under two weeks and 2.2% in the last week alone. The count of planned data centers reached 2,858 (+3.4% on the week) and operating campuses 1,396 (+1.5%), with 64.8 GW of operating capacity as announced (+2.0%). These are announcements, not buildings: planned capacity is more than six times what is running.
| Planned, GW as announced, 26 Oct | Change on the week | |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 415.1 | +2.2% |
| Texas | 94.8 | +0.7% |
| Virginia | 38.7 | +2.7% |
| Utah | 27.5 | 0% |
| Ohio | 25.3 | 0% |
| Pennsylvania | 23.1 | +0.9% |
| Georgia | 21.5 | +12.6% |
Georgia moved the most: from 18.6 GW on 14 October to 21.5 GW. Virginia's operating capacity rose 3.5% on the week to 17.9 GW. Worldwide, the single largest AI data center tracked went from 946 MW to 1,037 MW on 20 October, passing 1 GW; the 95 largest together draw 14.2 GW.
The money and the traffic behind it
Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle spent $181.5 billion on capital in the quarter to 30 June 2026, up 86.5% from $97.3 billion a year before. Meta is the first to report the September quarter: $33.94 billion, up 80.2%. Oracle spent $28.5 billion in its quarter to 31 August, up 235%. Downstream, US imports of computers and parts were $51.03 billion in August (+111% on a year), and US data center construction ran at an annual rate of $85 billion (+73.1%).
Usage moved too. Tokens sent through one large AI model router peaked at 30.6 trillion on 22 October, the highest in the 30 days on the board. Saturday 24 October came in at 23.4 trillion, 27.8% above the Saturday before. Weekends run lower on this series, so we compare like days.
US grid this morning
Lower 48 demand was 428,699 MW at 12:00 UTC on 26 October, 10.4% above the same hour on Sunday; PJM was up 15.0% to 93,593 MW. Our reading: most of that is the usual Monday-versus-Sunday jump, not a trend. ERCOT's real-time hub price was $30.07 per MWh at 13:02 UTC.
The slower numbers say more. In August 2026, household power cost 17.64¢ per kWh in Virginia (+11.3% on a year), 19.38¢ in Ohio (+10.4%) and 21.77¢ in Pennsylvania (+9.2%), against 18.16¢ for the US (+3.4%). Power sold to businesses grew 13.1% in Georgia, 12.3% in Arizona and 7.8% in Texas. These are states with heavy data center plans, but the board alone cannot say how much of either rise data centers caused.
China and the US
| China | US | as of | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electricity generated, 12 months | 9,944 TWh (+3.6%), large plants | 4,496 TWh (+2.7%) | to Aug 2026 |
| Share from wind and solar | 17.5% (+1.2 pts), large plants | 18.4% (+1.6 pts) | to Aug 2026 |
| Solar capacity | 1,299 GW | 169 GW, plants of 1 MW or more | Aug 2026 |
| Wind capacity | 693 GW | 167 GW | Aug 2026 |
| Storage added this year | 35.3 GW new-type storage | 10.84 GW batteries | CN Sep, US Aug 2026 |
China generates more than twice as much power and is growing faster, while the US gets a slightly higher share from wind and solar. China's storage additions jumped from 21.6 GW at end of June to 35.3 GW at end of September. Electricity used by China's computing centres stands at 300.9 on an index where 2022 = 100 (August 2026). Note the definitions differ (China's generation and wind-solar share cover large plants only), and the consumption figures on the board are still for 2024.
How much AI is talked about
Hacker News carried 147 to 171 AI stories a day from Tuesday to Friday, fell to 86 over the 24 hours to Sunday morning, and was back at 115 by Monday 13:14 UTC. Wikipedia views rose on the week to 24 October for GPUs (+22.5%), data centers (+17.8%) and AI agents (+16.5%). New AI repositories on GitHub reached 16,059 a day (+12.0%). arXiv is lagging on the board: its latest day is 20 October, when 267 AI papers appeared, 21.5% fewer than a week earlier, so we would not read much into it yet.
Figures from WattSaid™ by Starfind AI (starfindai.com/wattsaid/live), as shown on 26 October 2026; each number's period is given in the text. Data center plans: announced US capacity from Cleanview's free data center and power project tracker; the largest AI data centers from Epoch AI's Frontier Data Centers (CC BY 4.0). The money and the traffic: tokens through one large router from OpenRouter (CC BY 4.0, as of the date on its number). US grid this morning: Lower 48 demand from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's hourly data; the real-time hub price from ERCOT. China and the US: China's generation from the National Bureau of Statistics' monthly output of large plants; US generation from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's monthly series. How much AI is talked about: Hacker News through its public search API; Wikipedia page views; new repositories on GitHub; arXiv. Nothing here is investment advice.