• THE GRID
The Takeover Inside the Data Center
Last year, AI servers used 95 terawatt-hours of electricity.
This year: 175.
That's an 84% jump. In twelve months.
Gartner released its full data center power breakdown last month. I've read a stack of demand forecasts in 2026. This one was different. One number cut through all the noise.
AI servers now eat 31% of all data center power worldwide. A year ago, that share was 21%.
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AI Server Power 2026
175 TWh
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Conventional Servers
195 TWh
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AI Server Growth YoY
+84%
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Conventional Growth
+1%
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Lithium Stocks Are Surging, But You Won’t Find This One on Robinhood
The lithium boom is heating up. Thanks to growing demand, lithium stocks have doubled in price over the last year. $ALB is up 147%. $LAC is up 90%. $SQM is up 105%. While these stocks surged, the real winner could be a company you won’t find on a public exchange.
That company is EnergyX, a $1B unicorn that’s disrupting the lithium market with a patented technology recovering up to 3X more lithium than traditional methods. That’s earned them a $1B private valuation and investment from industry leaders like General Motors.
Now they’re ready to unlock commercial lithium production just as experts project demand will grow 5X by 2040. They’ve announced what could be one of the largest lithium production facilities in the U.S. and have the rights to approximately 150,000 acres of lithium-rich land. Unlike public stocks, you can still invest in EnergyX while they’re private alongside 40,000 everyday investors.
Regular servers — the ones running your email, your bank app, your streaming — went from 193 TWh to 195 TWh. A 1% tick. Flat.
Two kinds of machines. Same roof. One grew 84%. The other grew 1%.
The crossover comes next year. In 2027, Gartner projects AI server power will hit 258 TWh. Conventional servers: just 200 TWh. For the first time, the AI racks will draw more than conventional servers.
Step back and look at the full picture. Total data center electricity hits 565 TWh this year. Up 26% from 447 TWh in 2025. Cooling and other infrastructure — fans, chillers, liquid loops fighting the heat from dense AI racks — takes 195 TWh. Cooling grew 23% in one year. It now matches the full draw of every conventional server on Earth.
No plateau in sight. Gartner sees total data center power demand at 290 GW by 2030. Today it's 132 GW. More than a doubling in four years. Total consumption: 1,200 TWh.
On the supply side, S&P Global forecasts $1.3 trillion in U.S. utility capital spending from 2026 to 2030. This isn't a patch job. It's a system rebuild.
The old grid problem was simple: more data centers, more load. The new problem is sharper. The machines inside the buildings changed. They draw harder. They run hotter. They cluster in tight pockets where the grid was never built for this kind of strain.
Every transformer shortage, every substation queue, every rate case in this country now traces to one root cause: the computers changed, and the grid didn't.
Final Hours
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• VOLTAGE
The $2.6 Billion Campus
Carlyle built Copia Power in 2021. They bought a 6 GW solar and storage pipeline from Tenaska.
Five years later, they sold it for $2.6 billion.
EQT, the Swedish private equity giant with €269 billion in assets, announced the deal on July 9. That price tells you where big money sees the energy-AI future heading.
Copia isn't a typical power developer. It builds what it calls "grid-connected campuses." Each one sits at a high-voltage node on the transmission grid. Then it stacks solar, storage, gas generation, and data center space on one site. Generation and load share the same interconnection. No waiting in the grid queue.
The scale is real. Copia has 2.6 GW in operation or under construction. Its pipeline stretches past 20 GW of power projects and 9 GW of data center capacity supported by more than 25 GW of solar and storage assets.
"When we established Copia, our thesis was that power would be the defining constraint for electrification and the digital economy, and we moved with conviction."
Five years ago, that thesis was contrarian. Now it's consensus. The firms that locked up grid access early own some of the most strategic sites in tech.
EQT is making this deal through its new flagship fund, which targets €21 billion. The signal is loud: energy and compute are no longer two separate markets. They're one asset class.
If you own the land, the grid connection, and the generation at a high-voltage node, you're not selling power. You're selling the right to compute.
• WIRED IN
Signals From the Grid
Blackstone agreed to buy Dresser Utility Solutions from First Reserve on July 6. Dresser makes gas and water meters, valves, and control gear — the equipment every grid upgrade needs. Revenue hit about $375 million last year, on roughly $75 million of EBITDA. Old pipes, new profits.
Grid builders keep printing money. Quanta Services (PWR) reports Q2 on July 30. Analysts expect $3.03 EPS — up 35% from a year ago. The stock has crossed $100 billion in market cap with a record $48.5 billion backlog fueling the outlook.
Some of that power demand is coming from strange places. RIOT Platforms (RIOT), once a pure crypto miner, keeps pivoting to AI. AMD expanded its colocation lease at Riot's Rockdale facility from 25 MW to 50 MW in April. The full deal could reach $1 billion over its term.
On the utility side, BTIG just named Portland General Electric (POR) its top SMID-cap pick for the second half of 2026. POR trades at a 20% discount to peers despite a pending $1.9 billion deal to buy PacifiCorp's Washington operations — a bet on rising data center load in the Pacific Northwest.
Meters, transmission lines, utilities, even ex-crypto miners — all one trade now. The smart money isn't buying the chips. It's buying everything that powers them.
*Disclaimer: Energy Exploration Technologies, Inc. (“EnergyX”) has engaged [Capital Current] to publish this communication in connection with EnergyX’s ongoing Regulation A offering. [Capital Current] has been paid $250 per lead___ in cash and may receive additional compensation. [Capital Current] and/or its affiliates do not currently hold securities of EnergyX.
This compensation and any current or future ownership interest could create a conflict of interest. Please consider this disclosure alongside EnergyX’s offering materials. EnergyX’s Regulation A offering has been qualified by the SEC. Offers and sales may be made only by means of the qualified offering circular. Before investing, carefully review the offering circular, including the risk factors. The offering circular is available at invest.energyx.com. Comparisons to other companies are for informational purposes only and should not imply similar results.
