AI Investing Glossary
Why are data centers measured in gigawatts?
A gigawatt is a billion watts, roughly the output of a large nuclear reactor. Data centers are measured in power rather than square feet because electricity is the scarce input: a campus is sized by how much power it can draw and cool, so the industry describes projects in megawatts and gigawatts.
Why it matters for AI investors
Thinking in gigawatts lets an investor compare announcements across the buildout: capex figures, project sizes, and power deals all reduce to the same unit. When a buyer announces a multi-gigawatt campus, the number implies specific quantities of chips, transformers, cooling, and generation that suppliers will be paid to deliver.
Tracked stocks in this layer
The largest names in the Data Centers & Hardware category, ranked by market cap:
Market data as of the close on . Prices are end of day, not live.
Related reading
- What are AI infrastructure stocks? The 12 layers, explained · AI infrastructure stocks are the companies paid to build AI compute: chips, memory, networking, data centers, cooling and power. The 12 layers and the catch.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a gigawatt of AI data center capacity cost?
Public project disclosures put an all-in gigawatt of AI capacity in the tens of billions of dollars once compute hardware is included, with the buildings, power, and cooling a large minority share and chips the majority. The figure moves with hardware generations, which is why per-gigawatt cost estimates vary widely between announcements.
Related terms
See how this fits the whole picture in the Start Here guide, or browse the full glossary.