Orient Securities: AI data centers enter the energy era to drive demand for Chinese power equipment companies to go overseas
The Zhitong Finance App learned that Oriental Securities released a research report saying that electricity is increasingly becoming a constraint on data center deployment in North America. Nvidia invests in North American power companies, and regions with intensive data center construction such as Texas are expected to step up efforts to restrict data center connections. Self-built data centers may become one of the main solutions for future large-scale data center implementation in North America, which is expected to fully boost the demand of Chinese power equipment companies to go overseas.
Orient Securities's main views are as follows:
Nvidia takes a stake in power company Lancium and directly holds shares in the power infrastructure that supports the operation of its hardware
This time, Nvidia's investment was divided into two parts. It invested 2 billion US dollars to obtain 20% of Lancium's shares. In the future, it is expected that an additional 1 billion US dollars will be invested, and the maximum shareholding will increase to 30%. Lancium is part of the Blackstone Group. It was founded in 2018 in Houston, USA. Currently, more than 4 gigawatt power contracts have been locked to cover several heavyweight projects, and it is also a power supporting service provider for OpenAI and Oracle's artificial intelligence park “Stargate (Stargate)” in Texas.
AI is shifting from “lack of core” to “lack of power”
Nvidia's current investment is a pure equity investment and does not involve credit guarantees for data center construction or leasing. This is Nvidia's direct move to combat power shortages, which could hinder the deployment of Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin architecture in locations designed for high power consumption.
Texas has issued a ban on grid connections, and US data centers may move towards “separation of computing and electricity”
On August 3, 2026, the governor of Texas sent an official letter to the state's utilities commission and grid operator ERCOT requesting that all data center projects that are undergoing the grid-connection process be fully verified and audited. All new grid-connection approvals will be suspended until the audit is completed. Any project that fails verification will not be able to connect to the Texas grid system. According to data released by the power grid operator, there is currently a backlog of more than 1,800 projects in the grid connection queue in Texas, and the total request capacity has reached 474 GW. About 90% of electricity demand comes directly from data centers. Audit directives do not directly restrict projects that rely on on-site electricity generation, do not rely on or rarely rely on public grids, making it easier to verify projects with self-generating arrangements.
Optimistic about self-built data centers in North America driving demand for power equipment
From the power generation side angle, gas power generation is more suited to the urgent needs of large data centers for immediate and controllable electricity with comparative advantages such as stable output and peak adjustment at any time. From the perspective of power transmission and distribution, self-built data centers by North American cloud vendors will greatly drive demand for power equipment such as transformers and switches, compounding the shortage of main transformers in North America, and Chinese power equipment companies are expected to meet the opportunity; from the AIDC perspective, the increase in data center power consumption density will force the upgrading of external power supply and distribution architectures. SST solid state transformers, as the ultimate solution for external power supply and distribution of data centers, are expected to accelerate the industrialization process in the context of “power shortage” in North America. Electricity has become the most important constraint on data center construction, and I am optimistic about opportunities for Chinese power equipment companies to go overseas in the context of the worsening “electricity shortage” in North America.
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