Reasoning
As of mid-2026, the AI data center boom has faced mounting headwinds: power grid constraints (particularly in regions like Virginia and Oregon), escalating electricity costs, delayed permitting timelines, and reduced venture funding after 2024-2025 corrections. Historical precedent shows that announced mega-projects have a ~15-25% cancellation rate within 12 months when conditions deteriorate. However, the 200MW+ threshold filters for only the largest, most-capitalized projects (typically backed by hyperscalers like Meta, Google, Microsoft, or major cloud providers), which have stronger financial resilience and grid negotiating power than smaller projects—reducing cancellation probability for this subset. Current data suggests roughly 15-20 major 200MW+ projects announced in 2024-2025 are still in development phases. Given that we're already 7 months into 2026, a "more than 3" cancellation threshold requires 15%+ of large announced projects to formally cancel—moderately likely but not the base case. Hyperscalers appear committed despite headwinds, though geopolitical tensions and potential policy shifts around energy/export controls represent wild cards.Key uncertainty
Whether the U.S. electrical grid coordination on capacity allocation and pricing will stabilize by H2 2026, or whether further rate shocks and transmission bottlenecks trigger force-majeure cancellations by major project sponsors.