HYPERSCALERS BECOME UTILITIES: THE $140B POWER M&A WAVE
US power & utilities M&A: $28B (2024) → $141.9B (2025). A 5x jump in one year. Almost entirely driven by data centre demand. This is not slowing down.
THE EVOLUTION:
Phase 1 — PPAs (2023-24): Long-term contracts. MSFT-Constellation 20yr/$16B to restart Three Mile Island. AMZN-Talen 1.9GW through 2042.
Phase 2 — Acquisitions (2025): Google acquires Intersect Power for $4.75B (Dec ’25). Multiple GW of generation + data centre development. First hyperscaler to OWN power generation. PwC: “I do think you’ll start to see more of that in 2026.”
Phase 3 — Nuclear (2025-26): META signs 6.6GW nuclear deals (Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo, Constellation) — one of the largest corporate nuclear buyers in US history. AMZN invests $20B+ in Susquehanna nuclear campus + backs X-energy for 5GW SMRs. GOOGL backs Kairos Power for 500MW SMRs.
Phase 4 — Full integration (2026+): Hyperscalers stop buying power. They become power companies. Power is the binding constraint — you can buy all the Nvidia GPUs you want, but if you can’t plug them in, they’re paperweights.
THE NUMBERS:
• US data centre electricity demand: 19GW (2023) → 35GW (2030E). +84%.
• PJM capacity auction: $29/MW-day → $333/MW-day in two years. Almost all data centre load.
• Constellation acquires Calpine for $29B. NRG buys LS Power for $12.5B. All data centre thesis.
• Big Tech contracted 10GW+ new US nuclear capacity in the past year alone.
THIS REINFORCES OUR INFRASTRUCTURE THESIS: The hyperscalers are becoming utilities. They’re acquiring power generation, signing 20-year nuclear PPAs, and integrating backward into energy. The infra layer around them — Constellation, Vistra, Talen, NextEra, plus the equipment suppliers (Vertiv, Eaton, Siemens Energy) and data centre REITs (EQIX, DLR) — benefits from both the CapEx wave AND the energy M&A wave. Two tailwinds, not one.