A single datacentre campus reaches 5 GW

Current status: nowhere near 5 GW, and nothing qualifying has been published

• Largest campus today. Epoch AI's satellite- and permit-based database (updated 12 Oct 2026) lists SpaceXAI's Colossus 2 as the largest AI datacentre, at about 946 MW of IT power.
• Pipeline to 2028. I downloaded Epoch's data_center_timelines.csv (https://epoch.ai/data/data_centers/data_center_timelines.csv) and took the maximum IT power for each site. Among sites already under construction, the largest projected capacity is about 2.26 GW (Microsoft Fairwater Wisconsin, mid-2028). Next come New Carlisle (1.93 GW), Stargate New Mexico (1.75 GW) and Meta Hyperion (1.63 GW by early 2028).
• What YES needs. At least 5,000 MW of measured IT load, not capacity, at one contiguous campus. That realistically means a campus with about 5.5–6 GW of IT capacity running close to full.

Candidates and timelines (operator and utility sources)

• Meta Hyperion, Louisiana.
  • Meta now says the site will have 5 GW of compute capacity (Meta, 13 Jul 2026). A Meta spokesperson said about 5 GW of roughly 7 GW total would go to compute (Tom's Hardware, 28 Mar 2026).
  • The first phase is about 2 GW by 2030 (Data Center Knowledge, 13 Jul 2026).
  • Entergy's transmission testimony (LPSC docket, March 2026) puts the customer interconnection in service on 1 Aug 2030. Its study year for "after all Customer load and new generators are online" is 2035. The regulator's final vote on the seven new gas plants is set for 16 Dec 2026.
• PORTS-Pike, Ohio (OpenAI with SB Energy).
  • About 8 GW of IT capacity for OpenAI, with the first 800 MW in 2028 and a six-year buildout through 2032 (OpenAI, 17 Aug 2026).
  • The 9.2 GW gas plant it depends on is to be owned and built by a separate SoftBank affiliate, and no binding agreements to fund or build it exist yet, according to SB Energy's IPO filing as reported in September 2026.
  • OpenAI promises annual reports that include "project-related energy use". That is a possible disclosure channel, but it is annual and published after the year ends.
• SpaceX (which now owns xAI).
  • Targets above 2 GW by the end of 2026 and roughly 10 GW by the end of 2027, spread across many sites (Yahoo/Moneywise, 7 Aug 2026; SemiAnalysis, 7 Aug 2026).
  • Its Memphis/Southaven cluster consists of several sites that are not contiguous.
  • Its June 2026 IPO prospectus (S-1) describes facilities in capacity terms only: "approximately 1.0 gigawatt of compute power".
• Others.
  • Amazon's GW Ranch in Texas has 7.65 GW of planned onsite gas generation, with no public timeline.
  • Fermi's Project Matador expects about 1.5 GW through 2027 out of a 17 GW ambition.
  • The 5 GW UAE–US AI campus counts only if actual load is verified.

The verification problem

Operators publish capacity, not measured IT load:

• Meta's Environmental Data Index gives yearly electricity use per site but only a fleet-wide PUE (the ratio of total facility power to IT power). The question explicitly excludes fleet-wide PUE.
• Google publishes a PUE for each campus but not its load.
• Customer-specific utility data is usually redacted. Louisiana regulators quashed a subpoena seeking Meta's demand figures in August 2026.

So even a physically qualifying campus may never produce an eligible document within the window.

Base rate and estimate

No operator has ever published a measured campus IT load at record scale. The size of the largest campus has grown about 1.5–2× a year, so 5 GW of actual load at one campus is plausible around 2030–2032.

• I put roughly a 30–35% chance on some contiguous campus physically exceeding 5 GW of actual IT load by the end of 2031. The main paths are PORTS-Pike, a SpaceX mega-site, Amazon GW Ranch and Hyperion.
• Given that, I put about 15% on an eligible publication appearing by the end of 2031, allowing for reporting lags.
• I add a small allowance for a lenient reading of a statement like "operating at 5 GW".
• Result: about 6% by the end of 2031.

The hazard is near zero through 2027, rises through 2029, and is highest in 2030–31. Yearly first-occurrence chances, from the cumulative product of the quarterly hazards: 2027 0.2%, 2028 0.5%, 2029 1.0%, 2030 1.8%, 2031 2.8%.

Strongest case for a higher number

Spending is enormous: SpaceX alone is spending about $18B a quarter, and several 5–10 GW single campuses are announced. Musk is building at record speed, and SpaceX, SB Energy and Fermi are public companies whose filings would count. I am not moving much, because full build-outs are mostly scheduled for 2032–2035, capacity statements are explicitly excluded, and annual reports lag.

Question. By the last day of each quarter, has a single AI datacentre campus reached at least 5 GW of operational IT load, verified by the operator or a utility filing?

Definitions.

• Single campus: one geographically contiguous datacentre site, including adjacent parcels separated only by roads, railways, or utility rights-of-way and developed as one campus. Multiple buildings, phases, operators, and tenants on that campus may be combined. Separate sites cannot be combined merely because they share a project name, owner, electricity supplier, substation, or network.
• AI datacentre: a campus whose operator or qualifying utility filing identifies AI training or inference as a principal purpose of its operating computing infrastructure. Mixed AI and other computing workloads count; the threshold concerns the campus's total IT load, not only power attributable to AI. No covered-developer restriction applies.
• Operational IT load: actual electrical power consumed by operating servers, accelerators, storage, and networking equipment. It excludes cooling, building services, power-conversion and distribution losses, and other non-IT loads. Installed or commissioned capacity alone is not actual load.
• Reach 5 GW: report an actual campus-wide IT demand of at least 5,000 MW, either as an observed operating peak or an average over a stated measurement period. No minimum duration is required. Aggregated building loads must refer to simultaneous operation or the same averaging period; separate noncoincident peaks cannot be added. Grid power and onsite generation both count without double counting.

Resolves YES if a qualifying source identifies the campus, establishes that it is operating, and reports actual IT load meeting the threshold. A calculation from reported total facility load divided by measured PUE is acceptable only when both cover the same campus boundary and measurement period. A stated numerical range qualifies only if its lower bound is at least 5 GW. The Observation period convention applies.

Resolves NO / Exclusions. Resolve NO for a horizon without qualifying verification. Announcements, construction starts, planned build-out, reserved utility service, interconnection approvals, contracted power, generation nameplate capacity, commissioned but unused IT capacity, and forecasts do not count. Neither an unspecified “5 GW campus” nor 5 GW of total facility demand establishes 5 GW of IT load. Design PUE or fleet-average PUE cannot be used to infer campus IT load. Artificial load-bank tests without operating IT equipment do not count. The announced 5 GW UAE–US AI Campus described in G42's project announcement does not by itself establish operational load.

Resolving source. Sources are restricted to (1) a dated statement or report published on the campus operator's own domain or an operator-authored public regulatory filing, or (2) a publicly accessible filing authored by the serving electric utility in an electricity regulator's or grid operator's official docket, identifying measured service to the campus. Operator means the entity operating the campus or the relevant IT equipment, not merely its construction contractor or equipment vendor. Public confirmation (A2) applies, with this narrower source restriction; news reports, interviews, and third-party estimates alone cannot resolve the question. Measurement definitions are consistent with the facility-power/IT-power distinction in Google's PUE reporting, which is not itself evidence that the threshold has been reached. Apply the Resolution window and Resolution date (A3) conventions; where several documents are needed, use publication of the last document needed to establish all conditions.