The Power Grid — Power, Cooling & Construction
An AI data center now consumes as much electricity as a small city — and the grid wasn't built for it.
A modern AI training campus needs 1 gigawatt of electricity — about as much as 750,000 homes. The U.S. power grid was not designed for this. So hyperscalers are buying their own power plants (gas turbines from GE Vernova and Siemens Energy, nuclear PPAs from Talen/Constellation/Vistra, uranium fuel from Cameco, eventually small modular reactors from NuScale), their own switchgear (Powell, Eaton, Hubbell), their own cooling (Vertiv, Modine, nVent), their own backup generators (Generac, Cummins, Bloom), and hiring contractors (Quanta, EMCOR, Comfort Systems) to install it all. This is the largest chokepoint by company count — 22 names — because the build-out is enormous, physical, and slow.
Money cannot turn into electrons faster than the turbines can be cast and shipped. The bottleneck is physical, not financial.
22 names on the watchlist
Heavy-frame gas turbines — the AI power backbone
Maker of the giant H-class gas turbines that power new AI data center plants . $2.4 billion in data-center electrification orders in Q1 2026 alone — more than all of 2025 combined. Backlog $163 billion and growing. Order book sold out into 2030.
Third leg of the gas turbine triopoly
Siemens Energy is the third leg of the gas-turbine triopoly alongside GE Vernova and Mitsubishi. Almost doubled gas turbine sales (100→194 units) in fiscal 2025. 60% of 2025 gas turbine orders are tied to data centers. Partnered with Oklo on small-modular-reactor steam turbines. European ADR — liquidity is less than U.S. names. Wind subsidiary still bleeding cash, which is why the stock isn't up as much as GEV.
Liquid cooling pure-play — $15B backlog
Vertiv makes the uninterruptible power supplies, power distribution, and especially the liquid cooling systems for AI server racks. Modern AI racks pull 50-100 kilowatts (10x older racks) and require liquid cooling. $15 billion backlog. Direct NVIDIA GB200/300 partner.
1,920 MW AWS PPA through 2042
Talen owns the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and signed a long-term power contract with Amazon for 1,920 MW . That deal locks in cash flow for 18 years. Direct power-to-data-center deal, no grid middleman.
Three Mile Island restart for Microsoft
Constellation owns the largest U.S. nuclear fleet , including the famous Three Mile Island plant. Microsoft signed a 20-year deal to restart Unit 1 and buy all the power. Meta then signed a similar deal at the Clinton plant. Nuclear is the only carbon-free 24/7 power.
Comanche Peak 1,200 MW nuclear PPA
Vistra is an independent power producer with a heavy nuclear fleet in Texas. Behind-the-meter nuclear deals lock in 20-year cash flows at premium prices. Meta is the biggest customer.
Uranium mining — the fuel for the nuclear thesis
If Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon are all signing 20-year nuclear PPAs, somebody has to dig up the uranium that fuels those reactors . Cameco is one of the world's largest. Spot uranium prices have already tripled in two years. Hyperscaler nuclear deals push utilities into long-term uranium contracts at higher prices — Cameco is the cleanest play. Spot prices are volatile, and Kazatomprom production levels remain a wildcard.
Small modular reactor designer
NuScale designs small modular reactors (SMRs) — bite-sized nuclear plants you could drop next to a data center campus . The dream is one hyperscaler picks them as their SMR partner, and the stock 5x's. The reality is no revenue from operating reactors yet, the first commercial deal collapsed in 2023, and dilution risk is real. Pure lottery ticket on the SMR adoption curve.
Switchgear/transformer pure-play
Texas-based maker of custom electrical 'switchgear' — the prefab electrical buildings dropped onto data center sites. About half of all U.S. 2026 data center builds are reportedly delayed by power gear shortages. Powell's order book reflects it.
HTS wires + DPA national-emergency play
AMSC makes 'high-temperature superconducting' wires and power electronics that move enormous current through small cables. Defense Production Act priority designation. Niche, but the only listed pure-play in the category.
Solid-oxide fuel cells — on-site dispatchable power
Bloom makes solid-oxide fuel cells that generate electricity on-site from natural gas . When data centers can't get a grid connection (and many can't until 2028+), Bloom's modules are the workaround. Already powering hyperscaler campuses today.
Data-center cooling — FY28 target >$2B
Modine is a thermal-management company that pivoted hard into AI data-center cooling . FY25 data-center revenue was $644M, up 119%. Management targets >$2B by FY28. Cleanest mid-cap cooling pure-play after Vertiv.
Datacenter racks/enclosures — Siemens + NVIDIA reference
nVent makes the specialized racks and enclosures that house AI servers , plus liquid cooling distribution. Q3 2025 datacenter orders +270%. Reference architecture partner with Siemens and NVIDIA.
Largest army of high-voltage line workers
Quanta owns the largest private workforce of high-voltage transmission linemen on the continent . You can't connect a data center to power without them. Record $48.5B backlog. CEO calls the addressable opportunity $2.4 trillion through 2030.
Mission-critical electrical/mechanical construction
EMCOR is the largest specialty mechanical/electrical contractor in the U.S. — the people who actually install the wiring, plumbing, and HVAC in data centers. Record remaining performance obligations of $15.8B.
MEP/HVAC contractor — backlog doubled to $12.45B
Comfort Systems is the second-largest mechanical/electrical/plumbing contractor . Backlog has doubled in the last year to $12.45B. Stock has been one of the quietest 10-baggers of the AI era.
Switchgear + transformers + (now) cooling
Eaton makes everything between the grid and the chip rack — switchgear, transformers, busways. Just bought Boyd Thermal for $9.5B to add liquid cooling. Most diversified play in the entire power-grid chokepoint.
Utility transformers — the actual grid bottleneck
Hubbell makes the distribution transformers (the gray boxes on poles, but bigger) that step grid voltage down for buildings . Lead times are 2-4 years. Pricing power is at all-time highs. Boring, dominant, oversold relative to peers.
Last-inch power delivery for dense AI racks
Vicor makes the tiny power-conversion modules that sit right next to the GPU and feed it clean voltage. As GPU power density rises, this 'last-inch' delivery problem gets harder, and Vicor's specialty modules become more valuable.
Backup generation for data-center reliability
Generac makes backup generators for buildings . Pivoting from residential into the data-center market. Hyperscaler vendor approvals are moving forward. If they crack the approved-vendor list, this re-rates.
Backup diesel gensets — the proven fallback
Cummins is the largest U.S. maker of the backup diesel generator sets that data centers fire up when the grid goes down . Diesel gensets are the proven, reliable backup standard — every gigawatt of new data center load means a few hundred megawatts of backup gensets get ordered. Quiet, slow-and-steady winner. Truck-engine cyclicality is the bulk of the business though, so the AI tailwind only partially shows up in the stock.
Analog/PMIC tollbooth on every AI server board
TI makes the boring analog and power-management chips on every AI server board — voltage regulators, current sensors, signal conditioners. Mega-cap, slow-moving, but every server pays this toll.
- Dylan Bristot, AI Bottlenecks · whatllm.org · May 2026