This month’s analysis continues to prove the trend: AI investors and operators are no longer just buying power, they are buying power plants. From Coatue Management’s land grab to Anthropic’s counterintuitive strategy, we examine why owning the socket is becoming as important as owning the chip.
📘 Your Top Substack Reads from May
Why a World Leading AI Investor is Moving into Power
$70B AI Investor Coatue Management, who funded Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, ByteDance, Snap Inc., and Spotify — just decided to fund… DIRT. The firm built to write checks into pure software launched a new vehicle to buy land for AI data centers.
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Anthropic Just Paid Its Biggest Competitor For 300 MW. Here’s What That Exposes
Anthropic agreed to pay SpaceX $40 BILLION through May 2029. Let that sink in. The world’s leading frontier AI model company agreed to pay one of its biggest competitors billions of dollars. They didn’t want to. They had to. Elon engineered for this market 20 years ago.
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Hans Royal Just Broke the Forward Curves on the Energy Superheroes Podcast
How much are AI data centers willing to pay for power? It’s the most important question in the energy industry right now. And as far as I can tell, Hans Royal is the first person to credibly answer it. His number: $6,200/MWh.
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⚡ May Deal & Market Highlights
Tallgrass and Mitsubishi Corporation Allocate Two Gas Turbines for Wyoming’s Cheyenne Power Hub
The two M501JAC turbines will fuel the $7B, 1.15GW gas plant built exclusively for a large-scale data center. (Link)
Early Nvidia Investor Backs GridCARE in $64 Million Series A
The company finds idle grid power. No new gas plants, no turbines, just software. (Link)
Kindle Energy Building $1.2 Billion Natural Gas Plant in West Virginia
This is the state’s first-ever CCGT facility. The Blackstone-funded infrastructure group has been methodical about building out gas generation capacity ahead of the AI data center wave. (Link)
Duke Energy Corporation Announces $103 Billion Capex Plan Through 2034
The utility is adding 20 gigawatts of new power generation over the next 20 years. This will include gas-fired power plants, solar energy, battery storage, grid upgrades, and efficiency gains (Link)
MARA Holdings Acquires Long Ridge Energy Terminal for $1.52 Billion
Bitcoin miner MARA bought the 485 MW Ohio gas-fired power plant from FTAI Infrastructure for $785M cash + assumed debt. (Link)
That’s the May wrap. See you next month for more Electric Buzz highlights.
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