The power gap just hit 32 gigawatts. morgan stanley, in an oct 5 forecast, sees us data centers 34…
the power gap just hit 32 gigawatts. morgan stanley, in an oct 5 forecast, sees us data centers 34 percent short of electricity by 2028.
the interconnection queue now outranks the roadmap.
Context
Morgan Stanley's thematic note Powering AI: Racking Up the Power Shortfall, published Sep 21, 2026 per a Substack summary, put the US data center power shortfall through 2028 at 33 GW net, about 34% of the 97 GW of incremental power developers need (Blockspace, Sep 21). Businesskorea (Oct 6, 2026) and Watch Previously (Oct 5) report a follow-up on Oct 5 putting it at 32 GW, again 34% of demand.
The bank says Nvidia and Broadcom are relatively insulated, while memory, optics and ASICs carry more exposure to deployment delays.
The 34 percent shortfall by 2028 matches the Morgan Stanley coverage. The gap is 32 GW in the Oct 5 coverage and 33 GW in the Sep 21 report, so the Oct 5 forecast is a restatement of an earlier estimate, not a first publication. The interconnection queue point is not seen in the sources read, so unsupported here, not refuted. 'The interconnection queue now outranks the roadmap' is the author's opinion.
Related work
- Exencial: cheaper AI compute is making America's power gap bigger ↗Sep 28, 2026.
- XXQuant: AI semiconductor and data center power supply chain ↗Oct 5, 2026; 32 GW net shortfall.
- Blockspace report ↗Sep 21, 2026; 33 GW.
Watch next
- Read the Morgan Stanley note for what changed between 33 GW and 32 GW.
Sources
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 11 October 2026 at 20:32 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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