Bloomberg breakdown: a 1GW Texas AI data center may need nearly $3B for overruns alone
rohanpaul_ai · x · 2026-10-15
Bloomberg obtained an exclusive cost breakdown for constructing an AI data center in Texas, and every line item is ballooning:
- Servers make up at least half the bill, with prices more than doubling in 2 years on demand, while DRAM now costs over 5x last year's price.
- Power is scarce: grids rarely have a spare gigawatt in one place, so developers either pay $584K per megawatt for grid-connected land or build their own gas generation, whose cost has tripled.
- $750B of hyperscaler capex this year is chasing the same turbines, steel, copper and fiber — power-gear backlogs run past 2030, and a 1GW site may need nearly $3B for overruns.
- Liquid cooling drives install costs: GPU racks run hot enough that merely installing servers and cooling units at a 1GW site costs about $1.2B.
Related event: 1GW AI Data Center Costs Top $30 Billion, Bloomberg Finds(2 posts)→
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