AI’s Power Problem Just Got a Number: 32 Gigawatts

James Altucher says Elon Musk saw it coming, while the rest of Big Tech got “caught flat footed.”

Baltimore, MD, Oct. 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- For years, the AI boom had one fear: running out of chips. Now Wall Street has a new one. Running out of power.

Morgan Stanley says U.S. data-center builders are short 32 gigawatts of electricity through 2028. That’s a 34% gap. And the bank says it holds even after fuel cells and on-site power plants.

In a new free presentation, tech analyst James Altucher says Elon Musk knew this would happen. And instead of fighting for power on the ground, Altucher says Musk has taken his plans off the planet entirely.

The Chips Are Ready. The Power Isn’t.

The logic is simple. No power, no data center. And when data centers slip, the orders slip with them.

Morgan Stanley says the biggest names should be fine. In the bank’s view, Nvidia and Broadcom can shift chips to projects that have power and keep their forecasts on track.

The companies underneath them have less room to move. When a project gets delayed, the bank says, orders for memory, power and other parts inside the data center can get pushed out or canceled.

Altucher calls it AI’s “big, dirty secret.” He argues that traditional power plants simply can’t generate enough energy to power AI to its full potential.

A Power Problem Dressed Up as a Tech Race

For years, the market obsessed over whose AI was smartest and whose chip was fastest. Far fewer people asked what it takes to keep it all running.

The answer is a long list. Power around the clock. Cooling. Buildings. Transmission lines. High-speed links. And a mountain of parts to tie it all together.

Altucher says the biggest names in tech got stuck on the ground, “scrambling for every last watt of power they could dig up.” He points to Amazon throwing $20 billion at power, including nuclear. Microsoft trying to revive an old nuclear program. Meta building a giant gas plant.

“Elon did the opposite,” Altucher says.

Musk’s Answer: Get Off the Grid

Instead of fighting over the same land, the same power and the same grid, Altucher says Musk is planning to run AI in orbit, where the sun does the work. In space, he says, there are “no blackouts. No zoning boards. No town that can tell him no.”

Altucher says it’s more than talk. He points to a SpaceX filing with the FCC that lays out the scale of the plan. “This is not a prediction,” he says. The plan is “signed. Dated. Filed with the U.S Government.”

A 32-gigawatt hole on the ground shows why a plan like that is getting a closer look.

The Supplier Behind the Power Story

Altucher’s presentation goes one step further, to what happens once the computers are up there.

He compares Musk’s chips to the brain of a data center. But a brain can’t do much on its own. “And much like a human, AI also needs a nervous system to operate,” Altucher says. That means moving huge amounts of data between satellites and back down to Earth.

His presentation centers on one small supplier he believes fills that role. Its chips, Altucher says, “are in every satellite he has launched so far.”

It’s the kind of company Altucher says most people miss: “Suppliers. Partners. The little players nobody was watching.”

About This Presentation

James Altucher believes Elon Musk’s next big move isn’t a product launch. It’s a blueprint. In this free on-demand presentation, he breaks down the federal filing behind Musk’s plan to run AI in orbit, explains why he thinks power is AI’s biggest bottleneck and names the company he believes Musk still depends on. See it here.

About James Altucher

James Altucher has managed hedge funds, built his own AI trading algorithms and raised more than $100 million for a venture capital firm. Over three decades in finance, he has worked with some of the most famous hedge fund managers on Wall Street. He has been a guest on CNBC and Fox Business, and his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

Derek Warren
Public Relations Manager
Paradigm Press Group
Email: dwarren@paradigmpressgroup.com