US data centers may face a 32GW power gap by 2028, putting pressure on ASIC, storage, and optical module supply chains.

BlockBeats news, October 7 — Morgan Stanley's latest report states that U.S. data centers are expected to face a net power shortfall of about 34% from 2026 to 2028, equivalent to 32GW. The power bottleneck may shift from "chip shortage" to "power shortage," and will first hit the tail end of the supply chain, including ASIC, storage, optical modules, power management, and analog chips.

The report argues that Nvidia and Broadcom, due to high visibility into the final deployment locations of their chips and their global footprint reducing dependence on the single U.S. market, will see their 2027 performance forecasts remain largely unaffected for now; by contrast, ASIC is more sensitive to power resources, while products such as storage, optics, and power management are more vulnerable to data center project delays, facing risks of order postponement, cancellation, and inventory adjustments.

Morgan Stanley points out that Oracle's 1.3GW "Project Lighthouse" in Wisconsin has become a real-world reflection of this risk: full-power supply for the project may be delayed until as late as October 2028, with a pessimistic scenario even extending to spring 2029. Even if AI servers have already been installed in racks, without sufficient power they cannot be converted into actual computing power and revenue.

The report estimates that from 2026 to 2028, new U.S. gas turbine and engine capacity under the base-case scenario will be about 19GW, with Bloom Energy fuel cells expected to contribute about 6GW, and nuclear power and converted crypto mining sites also providing supplements, but overall this will still be insufficient to fill the power gap. At the same time, overseas expansion is constrained by factors such as approvals and geopolitics, making it difficult to quickly shift demand.