2026.03.03 | The $33.4B AES Buyout & The Data Center Interconnection Crisis

Despite ferocious AI demand, U.S. data center capacity under construction has shockingly dropped year-over-year as severe grid interconnection backlogs and equipment lead times paralyze developers. We analyze this critical bottleneck alongside the staggering market news that a consortium is taking the AES Corporation private in a $33.4 billion acquisition to aggressively fund the energy transition. The episode also explores the newly introduced bipartisan Rewire Act designed to streamline grid modernization, and dissects institutional vulnerabilities exposed in NERC’s latest GridEx VIII security report. Listen now to understand how massive influxes of private capital are rewriting the rules of utility ownership and what it means for the future of infrastructure planning.