The Gateway project is now in doubt after a local court ruling halted the project and a key backer pulled out.<\/p>\n
It is one of hundreds of large-scale datacentre projects around the world that are in various states of development, from chancier attempts at riding the AI boom to the more committed projects that have the support of tech behemoths like Microsoft.<\/p>\n
But while models produced by cutting-edge AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are improving rapidly, the central nervous systems behind their technology \u2013 datacentres \u2013 are being built at a much slower pace.<\/p>\n
The Uptime Institute, which inspects and rates datacentres, has identified 250 global datacentre projects exceeding 100MW in energy demand \u2013 equivalent to around 300,000 homes \u2013 that have been announced between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n
It said approximately half of those projects will either not happen, or their completion will be delayed. Even if the cancellations and delays came to fruition, there will still be an \u201cunprecedented and rapid\u201d increase in the power required over the next five years, according to Uptime. Mega-projects cancelled last year include Project Range in the US state of Arizona and the Cyberjaya campus in Malaysia. The Prince William Gateway is also on the cancelled list.<\/p>\n
This backlog poses problems for AI firms that need datacentres to train and operate their models. Google has admitted its cloud business \u2013 which uses datacentres to provide AI services like chatbots to companies and users \u2013 is \u201ccompute-constrained\u201d, as demand for ever more powerful AI models and services increases.<\/p>\n
Jay Dietrich, a research director at Uptime, says a number of factors are working against proposed datacentre projects. Those include: proposals from developers without datacentre experience and don\u2019t have committed tenants; the size, scale, and energy and water consumption of individual projects and the concentration of these projects in \u201cdatacentre corridors\u201d where projects are concentrated; and supply chain issues, including getting the chips to go in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe global supply chain just cannot support the level of projects out there, on the timeline that is projected. The scale is such that it\u2019s going to slow things down,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And, as the Prince William legal brief shows, the perennial issue of opposition from local community and environmental groups is another to consider.<\/p>\n
Uptime says we are entering an era of mega-gigawatt datacentres. It identified six projects last year, each aiming for at least 5GW of power \u2013 five in the US and one in the United Arab Emirates. To put that in perspective, Ireland\u2019s peak energy demand is 6GW.<\/p>\n
The energy demands are vast. 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\u2019s projected electricity usage for 2025, according to Uptime. It\u2019s a near-doubling of current datacentre demand. About 80% of the new power demand is coming from US projects.<\/p>\n
Uptime is not optimistic about these power needs being met.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurging datacentre power demands, particularly in N[orth] America, cannot be supported by power grids already operating under heavy strain,\u201d said Uptime in a January report.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to TechScape<\/p>\n A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782850452_383_500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n