Equinix raises guidance on AI demand — and in the same news cycle, Microsoft's own SEC filing admits the power might not show up in time. Put those together, and the story gets complicated fast. Here’s how we got here. The backlash has hardened from general worry into formal constraints — bans, moratoria, water fights, project withdrawals, zoning challenges. In Virginia, a groundwater study called for tighter water rules. IVCM sued IID over 260 million gallons of Colorado River water, and Plymouth Township lined up against a proposed two-million-square-foot Conshohocken build. This is The Data Center Daily. Today — a hyperscaler puts the grid in a legal filing, Trump hands 23 governors a pledge with no teeth, and Ohio's public actually wins one on water. We start with the Equinix numbers — the clean part — before it gets complicated. This story isn't over: Local data center bans and ballot backlash. Follow us wherever you're listening, and the next chapter comes to you. PR Newswire writes:
"We delivered an exceptionally strong Q2. Monthly recurring revenue grew double digits for the third straight quarter, new interconnections on our platform hit a record level, and disciplined execution drove robust profit growth," said Adaire Fox-Martin, CEO and President, Equinix. "Our revised 2026 guidance and long-term financial outlook reflect momentum across the business.
Equinix Q2: $2.625 billion in revenue, up 16 percent; net income up 30 percent; and full-year guidance raised to between $10.21 billion and $10.29 billion. The tell is buried in the interconnection line — a record 9,700 net adds in one quarter. Nine thousand seven hundred cross-connects. Those are cables getting physically punched down in a hall, not just a press release number. Demand isn't the problem here. Bookings rose 23 percent year over year — second-highest on record — and they're feeding a record backlog. Backlog's the word I'd circle. Right — backlog means they booked it but can't turn it on yet. Fox-Martin says they're 'uniquely positioned to serve AI needs.' Sure — positioned to book it. Whether the power shows up to energize it is a whole other filing, and we get to that one in a minute. Which makes today's timing almost too neat. The seller's order book has never looked better, and the constraint's moving upstream to the wire. Buried in Microsoft's latest 10-K is a passage that should stop every infrastructure lead in this space cold. The company now spells out access to electricity as a detailed constraint on datacenter expansion. Here's how they put it:
The availability, reliability, and cost of electrical power are critical to the operation and expansion of our datacenters. In many regions, electricity generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure is experiencing increasing demand and capacity constraints. Limitations in power availability, delays in obtaining power connections, outages, shortages, increased energy costs, or requirements imposed by utilities, regulators, or other market participants could restrict our ability to develop or expand datacenter capacity. In addition, alternative energy sources and other emerging solutions may not be available in sufficient quantities, may not timely scale to meet our requirements, or may be available only at higher costs. If we are unable to secure adequate power resources on commercially reasonable terms, our ability to support customer demand and execute our growth strategy could be adversely affected.
Look at how specific that is. This goes well beyond boilerplate force-majeure hedging. Microsoft is telling investors that grid interconnection timelines — and the scalability ceiling on alternative power — are live variables in its capacity build-out. It's a materially different risk posture from prior filings. So watch Microsoft's site-selection pipeline and PPA activity against this disclosure. When a hyperscaler this big names grid access and connection timing as growth constraints in a 10-K, behind-the-meter generation, transmission queue reform, and utility co-investment deals move from strategic options to operational necessities. Here's Josh Boak and Matthew Daly at The Associated Press:
President Donald Trump on Thursday had governors and electricity companies join a voluntary pledge to shield U.S. consumers from higher utility bills from data centers — a sign of how the artificial intelligence build-out has become a lightning rod of controversy before the midterm elections.
So the plan for keeping that bill off ratepayers is a voluntary pledge. Twenty-three governors, 187 companies, and not one enforcement mechanism in the whole thing. Nonbinding. He said it himself. And here's a sales pitch for the ages. Trump told executives — and I'm reading this straight — 'You can't fight it. You have to go with it.' Apparently the affordability policy is convincing your community they'll be rich. He also promised prices would drop because there'd be a surplus of power. Sarah, we just aired the Microsoft filing — their own lawyers wrote that generation and transmission are the bottleneck. Where's the surplus coming from? Right — and this is the second version of the same pledge. He rolled out the first one with the tech companies back in March, per the AP, and it didn't move voters an inch. This is the March pledge with governors' signatures stapled on before the midterms. The one thing I'll credit — the demand side and the policy side both went on the record this week. Microsoft did it in a legal filing, this in a Rose Garden pledge. Now we get to see which one actually moves a rate, and 'voluntary' tells you it won't be this one. A press release with a governor's signature doesn't show up on anyone's utility bill. And there's the gap between what got announced today and what a ratepayer actually pays in January. SendTech Times writes:
Data Center Knowledge reviewed Georgia Public Service Commission filings that recorded a 3,200MW customer commitment and an anonymized 3,210MW project before OpenAI unveiled the $20 billion Project Camellia campus. The PSC record establishes the load sequence before the public launch, but it does not identify the confidential customer.
Here's the sequence now in the PSC record. Georgia Power logged 3,200 megawatts of new customer commitment in April, along with an anonymized 3,210-megawatt project in technical review. The filing lists Q2 2028 for service, ramping to 3.2 gigs by 2031. OpenAI put the name Camellia on it three months later. So the load was moving through Georgia planning before a single community heard the words twenty billion dollars. And credit where it's due — this time we actually have a megawatt number. Two, in fact, and they match within ten megs. We've got a docket to work from. But the customer's still redacted. The commission knows exactly who's parking 3.2 gigawatts on the queue — the ratepayers funding the transmission to serve it don't get a name. Confidential to the public, crystal clear to the regulator. Data Center Knowledge pulled the filings apart and lined up the timeline. The gap between a Q1 large-load attachment and a press release turns out to be a whole planning cycle. Here's CRBC News:
The Ohio EPA dropped a proposal to allow data centers to use a general wastewater discharge permit after roughly 7,000 public comments opposed the change. Critics said a blanket permit would have bypassed necessary site-by-site environmental reviews and risked impacts to waterways linked to Lake Erie. Regulators’ reversal keeps individual permitting in place and highlights rising local concerns over the water and energy demands of expanding data center campuses.
And in Ohio, the state just dropped its statewide wastewater shortcut after about 7,000 people filed formal objections. The public showed up and the general permit died. And here's why the mechanics matter. The proposal would've let data centers operate under one blanket statewide discharge permit. The reversal keeps individual, site-by-site review in place. The link to Lake Erie is why people cared. And that's why it matters. With a general permit, nobody looks at what your specific campus dumps into a stream that runs to Lake Erie. Site-by-site means someone actually reads the discharge numbers before you break ground. It's a clean counterweight to this week's grid story. The power fight gets the headlines, but water permitting is becoming its own chokepoint, one comment period at a time. Put Ohio next to that Imperial Irrigation lawsuit in California, and it's the same fight playing out on both coasts. The 'we won't touch the water' promise keeps running into the permit process. Water's the next grid. If you follow data centers, check out AI Daily Briefing. It covers the top AI news for engineers, founders, and investors every weekday, separating real capabilities from demo hype — fast. It's a smart companion to this show, wherever you listen to podcasts.
What we're watching next: Project Camellia's utility-planning timeline points to service starting in the second quarter of 2028, then ramping to roughly 3.2 gigawatts by 2031.
You'll find links to every story in today's show notes if you want to dig into any of them.
That's The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.