In Santa Clara, Calif., where the world’s biggest supplier of artificial-intelligence chips is based, Digital Realty Trust Inc. applied in 2019 to build a data center. Roughly six years later, the development remains an empty shell awaiting full energization. Stack Infrastructure, which was acquired earlier this year by Blue Owl Capital Inc., has a nearby 48-megawatt project that’s also vacant, while the city-owned utility, Silicon Valley Power, struggles to upgrade its capacity.
We are looking at the mistake of allowing capital to offshore everything in the 70’s and 80’s. China didn’t force those companies to stop maintaining their existing infrastructure and outsource all their manufacturing overseas, they chose it in the interest of lower costs.