Oracle’s building bill is ballooning—just as New England starts deciding what kind of grid service giant loads actually get. For anyone joining us mid-arc, here’s the short version: OpenAI’s infrastructure strategy now spans owned buildouts, partner campuses, rented servers, and supplier-financed structures that can shift risk onto vendors. One flashpoint is Oracle and OpenAI’s Project Jupiter in New Mexico, where a state high court ruling halted air-quality review and paused a construction-water permit even as construction continues near the Texas border. This is The Data Center Daily. Today: Oracle’s commitments, ISO-NE’s new large-load rules, and whether the clean-power promises arrive before the gas gear does. Here's ISO New England:
This project covers the ISO’s and Participating Transmission Owners’ (PTOs) response to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) June 18, 2026 show cause order (Order) – See ISO’s conceptual design from August 18-19, 2026, which covers concepts related to: • The types of transmission services allowed for Large Loads (i.e., Firm Contract Demand Service (FCDS), Interim Contract Demand Service (ICDS) and Non-Firm Contract Demand Service (NFCDS))
ISO-NE put the nuts and bolts on paper: at 50 megawatts and up, you land in FCDS, ICDS, or NFCDS. Finally—service terms instead of a developer waving around an interconnection request like it’s electricity. The effective date is still TBD, so nobody gets to call this settled. But the September 15 NEPOOL materials go well beyond a concept deck: application procedures, study rules, tariff structure, and voltage and frequency ride-through requirements. Ride-through is the tell. ERCOT is wrestling with it, and now New England is too: a giant campus full of power electronics can’t just vanish when the grid gets ugly and leave everybody else cleaning up. FERC issued the show-cause order June 18. ISO-NE had a conceptual design in August, and now the tariff plumbing is arriving in September. That’s three procedural milestones in under three months—brisk by utility-regulatory standards. Oracle’s latest 10-Q has a disclosure that stops you mid-page: the company is flagging a massive tranche of data-center lease commitments that haven’t shown up on the balance sheet yet, and the filing spells out what that means.
for terms of fifteen to nineteen years that were not reflected on our condensed consolidated balance sheets as of August 31, 2026 or in the maturities table above.
Two hundred eighty-eight billion dollars off-balance-sheet is not a rounding error. It shows how far out Oracle has locked in capacity—and how much of its long build pipeline the standard financials weren’t showing you. Oracle’s counterparties—landlords, power providers, and the equity behind these deals—will have to respond to contracts this long. Lease commencements stretch into fiscal 2029, with terms of fifteen to nineteen years, and that will ripple through interconnection queues and PPA markets for years. The same 10-Q has a capex line that stops you cold. Here’s the filing, in Oracle’s own words, on where that money is going.
Cash used for capital expenditures increased from $8.5 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 to $28.5 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2027 primarily due to the expansion of our data centers. We expect our capital expenditures in fiscal 2027 to be higher than fiscal 2026 as we increase our existing data center capacity and establish data centers in new geographic locations in order to meet current and expected customer demand for our cloud offerings.
Oracle is telling the market it’s in a land-grab phase, locking in capacity and new geographies before demand curves bend against it. And the construction-in-progress balance says the iron is already being bolted into floors. Keep an eye on Oracle’s interconnection queue activity and any site announcements in new regions. If it’s guiding fiscal 2027 capex even higher than this, the forward contracting for power, land, and networking gear has to be happening right now. Here's Jazlynn Bebout at 21 Alive News:
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has approved the latest request from Google’s Fort Wayne data center developers to fill more wetlands as part of its multi-phase expansion.
Google’s Fort Wayne campus got its Phase 3 wetlands permit on September 10: 2.13 acres of forested, isolated wetlands can be filled for three new buildings in a $2 billion multi-phase build. And the remedy is 4.26 acres of mitigation-bank credits. Twice the acreage on paper, sure—but those three buildings still go exactly where the wetlands are. IDEM did put conditions on it: erosion controls, seasonal limits on tree clearing, and proof the credits were purchased within a year. So this is a real construction waypoint, not just a vague campus rendering. Google’s demand-response pilot is one thing; this is the physical footprint getting bigger. Fort Wayne is being asked to accommodate another phase, and the environmental bill comes due. Latitude Media, with Maeve Allsup:
But that shift wasn’t enough to mitigate the community push-back. Now, the project is seeking two GW of “new renewable energy in New Mexico” to offset those fuel cells and support its goal of “100% carbon-free energy matching by 2031.” Those renewables should come online between 2027 and 2031, with priority for those with “accelerated” timelines, Oracle said this week.
An update on the Stargate build-versus-rent story: Project Jupiter is adding a New Mexico renewables push to its permitting fight. Oracle wants 2 gigawatts online between 2027 and 2031 for a $165 billion project. And the 2.45 gigawatts of Bloom fuel cells are still fossil-gas machines. The solar is meant to offset them later; it doesn’t make the air-permit fight disappear now. Latitude got the important wording: “carbon-free energy matching by 2031,” with renewables coming online over four years. It’s an energy-accounting target, not a claim the campus opens on solar. A dashboard and $1 million for carbon-capture research are nice accessories. Neighbors are looking at gas supply, noise, water, and a delayed air-permit proceeding—not a 2031 promise. If you’re finding The Data Center Daily useful, please subscribe or leave us a review wherever you’re listening. Reviews help other people discover the show, and we’re grateful you’re here.
On September 15 in Westborough, NEPOOL’s Transmission, Markets and Reliability committees are slated to discuss ISO New England’s large-load proposal. Hatchworks must provide IDEM proof of wetland-credit purchase within the next year. And Project Jupiter’s requested New Mexico renewables are targeted to come online between 2027 and 2031.
Links to every story are in the show notes—take a look at the ones that caught your attention. That’s The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.