U.S. data centers may face a 32 GW power shortage by 2028, with supply chains under pressure

Huoxing Finance reports that, on October 7, Morgan Stanley’s latest report forecasts a net electricity shortfall of approximately 34%, equivalent to 32 GW, for U.S. data centers between 2026 and 2028. The power bottleneck may shift from “chip shortages” to “power shortages,” initially impacting the tail end of supply chains including ASICs, storage, optical modules, power management, and analog chips. The report notes that NVIDIA and Broadcom are temporarily unaffected in their 2027 earnings projections due to their high visibility into final chip deployment locations and their global footprints, which reduce reliance on the U.S. market alone. In contrast, ASICs are more sensitive to power resources, while storage, optical, and power management products are more vulnerable to delays in data center projects, facing risks of order postponements, cancellations, and inventory adjustments. Morgan Stanley highlights Oracle’s 1.3 GW “Project Lighthouse” in Wisconsin as a real-world manifestation of this risk: full-power electricity supply for the project may be delayed until as late as October 2028, with pessimistic scenarios extending to spring 2029. Even if AI servers are already installed on racks, insufficient power prevents them from generating actual computing capacity or revenue. The report estimates that under the base case,新增 gas turbine and engine capacity in the U.S. between 2026 and 2028 will total approximately 19 GW, with Bloom Energy fuel cells contributing around 6 GW; nuclear power and repurposed crypto mining facilities may offer supplementary capacity, but overall, these remain insufficient to close the power gap. Meanwhile, overseas expansion faces constraints from regulatory approvals and geopolitical factors, making it difficult to rapidly shift demand.