Contracted, energised, running: how Abilene, Nebius and Jane Street's AI capacity really arrives
Nebius, which rents out AI computing, expects to hold the rights to 5 gigawatts of power by the end of 2026. At the end of 2025, about 170 megawatts of its power was feeding chips that were actually running.
That gap is not a sign that Nebius is failing. It is how AI capacity arrives. Count the gigawatts promised to AI and the totals are enormous. Count the ones with chips running on them and the list shrinks fast.
Every campus passes five stages: announced, being built, energised, delivered and running. Power switched on is the last stage the builder controls, and only the last stage computes. How quickly running follows energised depends on whether the tenant’s chips come with the building.
The first stages are the slow ones. A campus is announced in a press release, often with no date for its power. It is energised when the grid connection is live, and that needs a substation, the yard that steps high voltage down, and transformers made to order. Backup generators queue too.
Jane Street, the trading firm, shows what that does to a builder’s order of work. It now settles the building and the power first and picks its chips last, because the electrical kit can take more than a year to arrive and chips are the quickest thing to buy.
After energised, the tenant sets the pace. At Crusoe’s campus at Abilene, Texas, the tenant’s chips arrived in the same months as the power, and the buildings filled one by one. Where a hall is let before its tenant’s chips are bought, it can stand live and quiet for much longer.
Explain it like I don't work in finance
A new housing estate is sold off plan, built, connected to the mains, handed over and lived in. Five dates, one house.
On some streets the family moves in the week the keys arrive, because the removal van was booked with the house. On others, wired houses stand empty for months while the furniture waits at customs. Count houses sold and you count hopes. Count lit windows and you count homes.
Malaysia shows how wide that gap can be. In June 2026 its data centres drew about 22% of the power they had booked from the grid.
A signed gigawatt is a promise. A running megawatt is computing, and the honest way to size AI is to count the stage each megawatt has reached.
For investors
The builder controls three stages, and they are the slow ones
Each stage has its own owner and its own clock, and the long clocks sit before energised. Announcing, building and energising are the builder’s work. Handing over a hall and filling it with running chips are the tenant’s.
The builder's stages are slow; the tenant's are quick only if the chips are ready
The five stages an AI campus passes, and who sets the pace of each
The measure that runs through this piece is megawatts at each stage. A megawatt contracted is a right to power. A megawatt energised is a live connection. Only a megawatt active, drawing power into installed chips, is computing.
The slow stages are bought first
The clearest sign of which stage binds is the order a builder commits in, and Jane Street buys power first. Its head of physical engineering, Dan Pontecorvo, told Dwarkesh Patel on 21 May 2026 that generators, transformers and some liquid cooling kit can take more than a year. So the firm commits to a site early, holds slightly more power than it needs, and picks a chip once the building is nearly ready.
Its sharpest choice was a decision not to buy. Jane Street backed up only the core of the system with generators, rather than the whole site, and switched its chips on six months sooner. A training job can restart from its last saved point, so an outage costs hours, while waiting for a generator costs months.
The result is a hall where power, not space, is the limit. Jane Street’s write-up of its Texas site counts 4,032 GPUs in 56 racks, and Patel, quoted there, says those racks take the whole grid connection in a small fraction of the floor first set aside. The section on that hall takes it further.
At Abilene, the chips came with the power
Abilene shows the staircase in one place, with a tenant whose chips were ordered with the campus. Crusoe builds it, Oracle leases it and runs the cloud inside, and OpenAI uses the computing. Work on the first two buildings began in June 2024, and Crusoe says they were energised within a year.
Abilene arrived building by building, and the chips arrived with the power
Construction start to running, and handover of capacity to Oracle's customer
The first GB200 racks arrived in June 2025, in the window Crusoe had given for energising the first buildings, and the first phase was running by 30 September. Oracle then reported handover building by building on its results calls, as transcribed: 42% of capacity by 10 June 2026, and six of eight buildings, 618 MW, by 10 September. Here energised set the pace, and delivery followed within a quarter or two.
Buyers pay for the last stage
The contracts show which stage is worth money: buyers pay for running chips, not signed power. Nebius defines active power as “power being consumed by installed, operational IT equipment and available for revenue generation”. Its US$17.4 billion agreement with Microsoft is “subject to the satisfaction of the deployment and availability of the GPU Services”, with a right to end a service delivered late.
Buyers also pay to hold a place in the queue. About 70% of the deals Nebius signed in the second quarter of 2026 included prepayments covering 50 to 60% of the related capital spending. A buyer that funds half a building before it exists is buying an earlier running date, not a megawatt on paper.
So the stage a buyer pays for is the last one, and it can sit well behind the others.
Signed power runs five times ahead of connected power
The strongest evidence that signed gigawatts overstate computing comes from a builder that publishes its own stages. Nebius expects 5 GW contracted by the end of 2026, against 800 MW to 1 GW connected, wired into finished halls. Contracted power is five to six times what it expects to connect.
At Nebius, signed power runs far ahead of power at work
Power at each stage, in megawatts, with the date of each figure
Connected overstates running again. Annualised revenue, last month’s revenue times twelve, counts only what is billing, so it is the best public window on active power. On my arithmetic, Nebius’s year-end revenue guide means about 580 to 750 MW billing in December, below the 800 MW it guides to connect. Most new deals were signed “against capacity arriving in late 2026” and will earn “primarily” in 2027.
In Malaysia, the connection runs far ahead of the chips
Where the chips are not ordered with the hall, the gap after energised can be far wider. In June 2026 Malaysia’s data centres drew 1,256 MW against 5.65 GW of maximum demand, the most power a site may draw at once, booked by the projects in Tenaga Nasional’s system. Johor holds 5.6 of Malaysia’s 8.35 GW of secured data centre capacity.
Malaysia's data centres drew about a fifth of the power they booked
Data centre projects in Tenaga Nasional's system, in megawatts, June 2026
A Johor hall can be energised, let and earning while drawing little. DayOne, which runs campuses there, counts energised and in-service capacity as separate stages, and its long contracts pay for capacity while power is billed as used. Chips for any tenant headquartered in China or Macau also need an American export licence, which Abilene’s American tenant does not.
What could close the gap faster than I think
The case against is that the stages may follow each other quickly almost everywhere. Nebius reached about 170 MW active at the end of 2025 against a target of 100 MW, and had delivered every Microsoft tranche by 12 August 2026. And my billing figure is my own arithmetic on a revenue guide, not a figure Nebius reports.
Malaysia’s gap may also be timing, not idle halls. Campuses book for their finished size and fill in phases, and the deputy minister told Parliament on 13 October 2026 that data centres book more than they use. Nobody splits the gap between ramp, overbooking and licensed chips, so I hang nothing on any one of them.
None of this makes a signed gigawatt into computing. Even on the fastest path, at Abilene, more than two years passed between the start of work and three quarters of the campus handed over. My claim tests the fast cases directly: if Nebius connects 800 MW and is still not billing that much six months later, the lag is longer than months.
Count the lit windows
Nebius’s 5 gigawatts and its 170 running megawatts are both true, and they measure different stages. A builder controls the slow stages up to energised, which is why Jane Street buys them first. After that, the tenant decides: at Abilene the removal van came with the keys, and in Malaysia many wired houses are still mostly dark. Anyone sizing AI should count lit windows, not houses sold.
The later megawatt is priced higher, so revenue can run ahead of the chips
Here is the catch in counting lit windows from outside. Nebius has reported active power only once, so revenue is the best public meter of chips running. But its new deals price at US$20 to 25 million a megawatt a year, against a 2026 base of US$12 million. As those deals switch on, mostly in 2027, each new running megawatt could bill up to about twice what the old ones did.
The same revenue could mean about half the running megawatts at new-deal prices
Megawatts billing implied by US$9.6 billion of annualised revenue, at each price per megawatt a year
So the meter everyone reads can run ahead of the chips. On my arithmetic, US$9.6 billion of annualised revenue is 800 MW at the old base, but only about 384 to 480 MW at new-deal prices. If those prices turn into billing, anyone dividing revenue by the old rate could count up to about twice the megawatts actually running. That is also why my own test is generous to me: Nebius can pass it with far fewer than 800 MW at work.
The higher price is the queue showing up in a contract. Later buyers pay more for the same megawatt, as gas turbine buyers do in Building your own power. About 70% of Nebius’s second quarter deals also carried prepayments covering 50 to 60% of the related capital spending. The builder gains twice, and the late buyer pays twice, in price and in cash up front. The risk of lateness runs the other way: Microsoft’s US$17.4 billion agreement pays only for services deployed and available, so a late hall costs the builder. The same caution applies in Johor, where a hall can be let and earning while it draws little.
The prices sit in Nebius’s own letters; turning them back into running megawatts is my arithmetic. Watch its year-end 2026 letter for connected power, then its figures at 30 June 2027 for active power or revenue. If both arrive, divide revenue by the new-deal price as well as the old one, and the honest count sits between the two. The gap should last as long as new deals price above the old base.
What would prove me wrong
The first test is Abilene. Oracle’s June timetable put the last buildings in its quarter to 30 November 2026, and Crusoe expects the campus complete by the end of 2026. If it is energised and Oracle has still not reported all eight buildings delivered by its March 2027 results, fitting out, not power, is setting the pace. This limb tests delivery, the nearest stage anyone publishes by site.
The second is Nebius at 30 June 2027, six months after its connected guide falls due. If it has connected at least 800 MW but has fewer than 800 MW active, or, without an active figure, annualised revenue below US$9.6 billion, its halls are waiting more than months for running chips. Neither result would by itself say why: a slip could be chips, fit-out or customers starting late.
Research notes
The Nebius initiation note (6 October 2026) rests on the Nebius claim and already carries the correction from connected to active power. No note rests on the Jane Street claim or the new claim. Whether any of this is already in share prices is a question for these notes, not for the journal.
The claims on record, word for word
The test this piece stands behind, quoted word for word from the claims page:
Contracted, energised, running (30 October 2026)
Claim: “An AI campus’s capacity arrives in stages, and energised power is the last one its builder controls: at Abilene, whose tenant ordered its chips with the campus, and at Nebius, which installs its own chips under contracts with delivery dates, computing follows the power within months, so contracted or announced gigawatts overstate it, while in Malaysia, where Johor holds two thirds of secured data centre capacity, halls can be energised and let well before they run.”
Breaks if: “Crusoe reports the Abilene campus energised or complete by the end of 2026 but Oracle has not reported all eight buildings delivered to its customer by its results for the quarter ending 28 February 2027, or Nebius reports at least 800 megawatts connected at the end of 2026 but, at 30 June 2027, reports active power below 800 megawatts or, if it reports no active figure, annualised revenue below US$9.6 billion, 800 megawatts at its stated 2026 base of US$12 million a megawatt.”
Two earlier claims on Nebius and Jane Street:
Nebius has lined up five gigawatts of power. It expects about one switched on this year. (30 September 2026)
Claim: “AI buyers pay for connected power, and Nebius’s edge is turning contracted power into connected power faster than they can.”
Breaks if: “Prepayments fade, or Nebius misses 800 megawatts connected by the end of 2026, or its customers start selling their own spare capacity.”
Where later evidence bears on it: I was wrong. Buyers do not pay for connected power. On Nebius’s own definitions they pay for active power, chips installed and running, which comes after connection. I said so in the Nebius note on 6 October. The edge is still speed, but the test that matters is active power, read through annualised revenue.
On the three tests: the 800 MW limb is unresolved until Nebius reports the end of 2026. On prepayments, the latest evidence predates the claim: Nebius’s letter of 12 August put them in about 70% of second quarter deals, and nothing it has published since shows them fading. On the third limb, I have found no primary evidence of a Nebius customer selling its spare capacity; Bloomberg reported in July 2026 that Meta plans to, which is press and unconfirmed.
Jane Street now commits to the power first and picks the chips last (25 September 2026)
Claim: “The order builders commit in reveals the constraint, and at Jane Street power now comes first and chips last.”
Breaks if: “Chips become the longest wait again while transformer and generator lead times fall back to months, or dropping full generator backup proves a false saving.”
Where later evidence bears on it: nothing I have found cuts against it. The claim rests on one firm’s own account, and I have no published outage record to test the generator saving either way. Jane Street’s US$6 billion commitment to CoreWeave in April predates the claim but fits it: a builder short of finished power also rents it.
The figures behind the charts
The stages, side by side, from each company’s own disclosures.
| Stage | What it means | Abilene (Crusoe, Oracle) | Nebius |
|---|---|---|---|
| Announced or contracted | Land and power rights secured, a plan made public | Expanded to 1.2 GW on a grid connection, with gas turbines for backup only (Crusoe, 18 March 2025) | More than 2 GW contracted (12 February 2026), more than 3.5 GW (13 May 2026), target 5 GW by end 2026 (12 August 2026) |
| Under construction | Shell, power and cooling being built | Phase one, two buildings, began June 2024; phase two, six more, began March 2025 (Crusoe, 21 May 2025) | Not reported separately |
| Energised or connected | Grid connection live; for Nebius, finished and equipped halls | First two 100 MW buildings energised in under a year (Crusoe, 27 March 2026); phase two due mid-2026, completion by end 2026 | Guide of 800 MW to 1 GW connected by end 2026 (letters of 12 February and 13 May 2026; on 12 August Nebius reaffirmed “full-year 2026 guidance across all metrics”) |
| Delivered | Hall handed to the tenant | 42% of capacity (June 2026), then 6 of 8 buildings, 618 MW, 75% (September 2026), per Oracle’s calls as transcribed | All Microsoft tranches delivered (12 August 2026) |
| Running | Chips installed, drawing power, earning | First GB200 racks delivered June 2025; first phase running by 30 September 2025 (Crusoe) | About 170 MW active, end 2025 (12 February 2026) |
Abilene. Crusoe’s release of 30 September 2025 gives the June 2024 start, the first two buildings energised within a year and the first GB200 racks in June 2025. In May 2025 Crusoe expected phase two energised in mid-2026; in March 2026 it said the phase was “expected to reach completion by the end of 2026”, without an energisation date. On its call of 10 June 2026, as transcribed, Oracle said 42% of Abilene’s capacity had been delivered, about 35% more would follow within 90 days, and the rest in the quarter after, ending 30 November 2026. On 10 September it said six of eight buildings, 618 MW and 75% of capacity, were with the customer, and that it delivered 131,000 GPUs there in the quarter. Crusoe’s 1.2 GW and Oracle’s 618 MW are different yardsticks and are not compared.
Nebius. Contracted power is “power secured by contracted land and power commitments”; connected power is power wired into fully built and equipped data centres (letter, 13 May 2026).
| As at | Contracted | Connected | Active | Annualised revenue | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| End 2025 | more than 2 GW by 12 February | not given | about 170 MW, against a 100 MW target | US$1.25bn | Letter, 12 February 2026 |
| May 2026 | more than 3.5 GW | not given | not given | US$1.92bn, March | Letter, 13 May 2026 |
| June 2026 | target raised to 5 GW for end 2026 | 800 MW to 1 GW guided for end 2026 (12 February, 13 May) | not given | US$3.0bn; US$7 to 9bn guided for end 2026 (12 February, 13 May) | Letter, 12 August 2026, reaffirming “full-year 2026 guidance across all metrics” |
The Microsoft agreement (Form 6-K, 8 September 2025) runs through 2031, with services in tranches during 2025 and 2026; if Nebius misses a delivery date after a grace period and cannot offer other capacity, Microsoft may end that service, and late delivery carries liquidated damages. Prepayments covered 50 to 60% of the related capex, and Nebius expects more than US$9 billion of them in 2026. New deals price at US$20 to 25 million of annual contract value per megawatt, against a “2026 base” of US$12 million. Method: US$7 billion and US$9 billion divided by US$12 million a megawatt give about 583 and 750 MW.
Jane Street. The podcast with Dwarkesh Patel was published on 21 May 2026, separate from the video tour of the site released on 15 May. Pontecorvo also said chip choice changes the building, so a hall designed for one chip can suit another badly. On 15 April 2026 CoreWeave said Jane Street had committed about US$6 billion to use its AI cloud.
Abilene, Nebius and Johor compared.
| Abilene | Nebius | Johor | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who fills the hall | One tenant, Oracle, with its chips ordered for the campus | Nebius itself, under contracts with delivery dates | Each operator’s tenants, on their own schedule |
| How the builder is paid | Oracle leases the campus; terms not public | Contracts for capacity deployed and available, part prepaid | DayOne: take-or-pay for capacity, power passed through on actual use (Form F-1, 5 October 2026) |
| Do the chips need a US licence? | No, a US tenant | Not disclosed | Yes, for any tenant headquartered in China or Macau (BIS, 31 May 2026) |
| Gap from energised to running | Racks arrived with the power, June 2025 | Not disclosed; a lag on my arithmetic | Malaysia-wide draw about 22% of booked, June 2026 |
Johor holds 29 of Malaysia’s 61 data centre projects. DayOne’s largest customer, a global technology company with a leading short-form video platform, provided 69.2% of its revenue in the first half of 2026.
Correction. An unpublished draft of mine on Abilene said that “Johor is short of connections, not chips”. The deep piece on Johor and Singapore shows that was wrong for campuses already connected, and I withdraw it. The same draft said chips follow a live hall “in months”; that holds at Abilene, where the racks came with the power, and is not generalised.
Who is exposed if only running capacity counts
This maps who operates in each layer. It is not a recommendation, and naming a company is not a view on its shares. Figures in the piece are disclosures used as evidence for the mechanism.
- The builders
- Crusoe builds AI campuses; Lancium plans Abilene's power. Nebius, CoreWeave and Lambda rent GPU clusters. DayOne runs Johor campuses.
- The tenants
- Oracle runs Abilene's cloud and OpenAI uses it. Microsoft, Meta and Jane Street rent capacity; Jane Street also runs its own.
- The long-lead equipment
- Caterpillar, Cummins and Rolls-Royce make generators. Hitachi Energy, Siemens Energy and GE Vernova make transformers. Vertiv, Schneider Electric and Eaton make prefabricated power modules.
- The chips
- Nvidia makes the GPUs and rack systems.
- On the other side
- Anyone sizing AI from contracted gigawatts, and halls let ahead of their tenants' chips.
Sources: Crusoe releases (18 March 2025, 21 May 2025, 30 September 2025, 27 March 2026); Oracle's results release (10 September 2026) and its results calls of 10 June and 10 September 2026, as transcribed by The Motley Fool; Nebius shareholder letters (12 February, 13 May and 12 August 2026) and its Form 6-K on the Microsoft agreement (8 September 2025); Jane Street's podcast conversation with Dwarkesh Patel (21 May 2026) and its write-up of its Texas data centre; CoreWeave's release (15 April 2026); Tenaga Nasional's analyst briefing (28 August 2026); Dewan Rakyat Hansard (13 October 2026); DayOne's Form F-1 (5 October 2026); US Commerce Department guidance (31 May 2026). The lead on Abilene's stages came from the video "State of AI data centres 2026". Personal research, not investment advice.