AI Power Announcements Measure Gigawatts, Not Commitments

The U.S. government announced two gigawatt-scale AI power projects within nine days this summer, yet neither obligates anyone to build anything. The distinction between announced, permitted, contracted, and delivered capacity has become the central question in AI infrastructure development—and the one that determines whether ambitious plans become operational data centers.

On July 20, the National Nuclear Security Administration selected Amentum to enter negotiations for a phased lease at South Carolina's Savannah River Site, covering a 1-gigawatt AI data center and approximately 2 gigawatts of dedicated generation. Nine days later, the Department of Energy named Brookfield and NextEra Energy as partners at Kentucky's Paducah site, with more than $100 billion in announced private investment and a 1.8-gigawatt campus.

Both announcements lead with gigawatt figures. Neither represents a binding commitment.

Four stages of capacity

Capacity exists in four distinct forms, according to reporting first published by Forbes contributor Güney Yıldız. Announced capacity commits no one to anything. Permitted capacity means a regulator has allowed construction but no one must proceed. Contracted capacity means someone has agreed to pay. Delivered capacity means the infrastructure exists and operates.

Savannah River remains in the negotiation stage. The NNSA's own statement clarifies that selection "does not constitute a final lease award." No investment figure, rent structure, phasing schedule, or construction date has been published. The September 2025 solicitation requires the chosen partner to build, operate, and decommission the project at its own cost and secure utility interconnection agreements independently.

Paducah discloses more structure but lacks a named anchor tenant. The energy package includes roughly 2 gigawatts of new grid-connected gas generation plus up to 2.6 gigawatts of battery storage, with completion expected in 2031. The power service agreement still requires Kentucky Public Service Commission approval and definitive documentation. The project's own announcement lists three different capacity figures: compute load above 1.2 gigawatts, utility capacity of 1.8 gigawatts, and up to 4.6 gigawatts of dedicated generation.

Private projects show the same pattern

OpenAI's Stargate project illustrates how announced capacity evolves. In July 2025, OpenAI and Oracle "entered an agreement to develop 4.5 gigawatts" of additional capacity. By September, the same deal was described as "up to 4.5 gigawatts" within "nearly 7 gigawatts of planned capacity." By April 2026, OpenAI claimed to have passed its 10-gigawatt commitment, with more than 3 gigawatts added in 90 days. None of these figures represents utility-verified capacity.

The Abilene, Texas site shows what happens between announcement and delivery. An independent tally by Epoch AI in April found roughly four of eight buildings live, representing about 0.3 gigawatts of the planned 1.2 gigawatts. A 600-megawatt expansion flagged in September 2025 was reportedly dropped in March 2026, though Oracle publicly rejected that characterization.

Memphis demonstrates all four capacity stages simultaneously. SpaceX, which acquired xAI in February 2026, has roughly 300 megawatts of grid supply approved by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The Shelby County air permit covers 15 turbines and 247 megawatts. SpaceX stated on July 30 that it currently operates 69 gas turbines across Colossus sites. Mississippi permit filings describe a permanent 1.2-gigawatt plant of 41 turbines.

Why it matters

Ratepayer exposure has become the political center of AI power infrastructure. If costs for generation, interconnection, transmission reinforcement, and backup leak into the general customer base, AI demand becomes a household electricity problem. Louisiana's dispute over Entergy's March 2026 agreement with Meta exemplifies the tension: Entergy projects $2 billion in customer savings over 20 years, but intervenors say they cannot assess ratepayer exposure because much of the filing is designated confidential. An administrative law judge referred a subpoena dispute to the full commission, which could address it on August 12.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the Ratepayer Protection Act 52-0 on July 21, requiring state utility commissions to consider standards under which data center customers of 100 megawatts or more carry the full incremental cost of upgrades they trigger.

Meta's Richland Parish project in Louisiana offers the strongest counterargument. The site went from roughly 2,600 megawatts planned to a declared 5-gigawatt target to a utility request exceeding 5,200 megawatts, with a signed full-cost-of-service agreement and two plants under construction since December 2025. That conversion happened in approximately 18 months.

The details in this analysis were first reported by Güney Yıldız for Forbes.