Methodology
How we verify AI data center capacity
Nobody on the open internet maintains a canonical, sourced, dated record of announced gigawatts versus actually energized gigawatts. This is that record. A campus with headline announcements but no queue position, no permits, and no turbine or transformer orders gets the honest status the evidence supports, not the one the press release implies.
Verification signals, strongest to weakest
1. Energization evidence (strongest)
Utility interconnection filings, grid-operator large-load records, and official confirmation that load is actually being served. This is the only evidence that moves a campus into the energized series.
2. Construction evidence
Building permits, air permits for on-site turbines from the EPA or a state environmental agency, county permit dockets, dated satellite imagery, and verified groundbreakings. Enough to record under-construction, not energized.
3. Financing evidence
SEC filings, loan documents, and official prospectus data. Strong for the financial-structure ledger (backstops, guarantees, equity, capex), but a signed check is not a switched-on transformer.
4. Paper evidence (weakest)
Press releases and earnings-call statements. Enough to record an announced figure at the claimed tier, and nothing more.
How current-best capacity resolves
Each of the four capacity series (announced, contracted, under construction, energized) is an append-only ledger of dated, sourced claims. We never overwrite a claim; we supersede it, so the history can be replayed at any past date. The current best value for a series is the claim with the highest evidence tier (verified, then reported, then claimed), and among equal tiers, the most recent as-of date. Superseded claims are excluded from the current value but stay on the record. The rule is deterministic and inspectable, not a matter of editorial taste.
Absence of evidence is recorded
When a campus has an announced figure but nothing built, the energized series reads zero and says why. When a campus depends on a power plant that is itself unbuilt, we track that plant as its own project with its own lifecycle, so a campus can never show energized ahead of its power source. The empty cells are not gaps in our coverage; they are the finding. This candor is the point.
Hard rules
- Primary sources over aggregators. We cite the filing, the permit, or the prospectus, not a site that repackages them.
- We never reproduce paywalled article text. We extract the fact and cite the source.
- Every rendered number traces to a source row. If you can see a figure, you can see where it came from.
- Estimates are labeled estimates, with the method disclosed.
- When sources conflict, we show the conflict rather than pick one silently.
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