Silicon Valley data centers totalling nearly 100MW could 'sit empty for years' due to lack of power — huge installations are idle because Santa Clara can't cope with surging electricity demands

In the heart of Silicon Valley, two freshly built data centers designed for the world’s most power-hungry computing workloads are standing empty. Digital Realty’s four-story SJC37 facility and Stack Infrastructure’s SVY02A campus in Santa Clara, California, were both constructed to host tens of megawatts of high-density IT hardware. Instead, they’re waiting for electricity.

According to a Bloomberg report, both projects are complete but idle, with no firm timeline for full energization. Digital Realty’s 430,000-square-foot site was built for 48 megawatts of critical load. Stack’s nearby SVY02A campus — also designed for 48 megawatts — includes its own substation and eight data halls. Together, they represent nearly 100 megawatts of capacity ready for servers, accelerators, and networking gear that cannot be switched on until the local grid catches up. According to the report, both "may sit empty for years."

Santa Clara’s publicly owned utility, Silicon Valley Power (SVP), is racing to expand supply to meet surging demand from data center operators. The city has 57 active or in-progress facilities and is investing $450 million in grid upgrades scheduled for completion by 2028. SVP told Bloomberg it is sequencing power delivery among customers as new substations and transmission lines come online.

The city’s challenges mirror those emerging across the country. Northern Virginia, the largest data center market in the U.S., has faced multi-year connection delays as utilities struggle to reinforce high-voltage infrastructure. Regions in the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast are also reporting wait times of two to five years for new capacity. Recently, Microsoft admitted it has GPUs sitting idle because it has no power for them.

Silicon Valley remains prime real estate for operators chasing low-latency proximity to users and AI developers. Nvidia’s headquarters sits just minutes away from both idle sites, a reminder that even the global leader in GPU compute can’t accelerate grid construction. The scale of modern AI clusters, often measured in hundreds of megawatts, is pushing local networks to their limits.

Digital Realty and Stack both told Bloomberg they are coordinating with SVP to phase in power delivery as upgrades progress. But with AI infrastructure expanding faster than transmission projects can be approved, the gap between completed buildings and available electricity is likely to widen. Although the servers are ready, the power isn’t.

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