Brandsit
Summary
As recently as two years ago, at the height of AI fever in 2024, there was only one question being asked in boardrooms: ‘Where to get Nvidia processors?’ Chip availability was the bottleneck that dictated the pace of technological development. Today, in January 2026, the situation has changed dramatically. Hardware supply chains have cleared, distributors’ warehouses are full of the latest Blackwell and Ruby chips. Yet new data centre investment is stalling.
The question of 2026 is no longer “Do you have the equipment?”, but “Where will you connect it?”. Power Availability has replaced silicon availability as the main operational risk factor. We are entering an era where the success of an AI project is determined by the old analogue power infrastructure rather than digital code.
This change is driven not only by physics, but also by EU regulations (EED – Energy Efficiency Directive). Liquid cooling is much more energy efficient and, moreover, allows heat recovery. The fluid leaving the server has a temperature of 60-70°C, which allows the Data Centre to be plugged directly into the municipal district heating network. In 2026, server rooms become de facto digital combined heat and power (CHP) plants, heating office buildings and housing estates, which is key to obtaining environmental permits.
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