For most of the past decade, a power purchase agreement was enough. Hyperscalers signed long-term renewable contracts, ticked the sustainability box and moved on. That model is now under strain. In market after market, existing grid capacity is no longer keeping pace with the appetite for compute, and conventional procurement mechanisms were never designed to deliver the volumes of firm, round-the-clock power that AI infrastructure demands.

What is emerging in its place is something more fundamental: operators going directly to generators, utilities and infrastructure owners to create net-new supply – not to offset consumption, but to build dedicated capacity tied directly to their growth.

From PPAs to direct partnerships

The clearest signal yet came in December 2025, when Alphabet acquired Intersect Power for $4.75 billion, a move that included multiple gigawatts of energy and data centre projects and marked one of the most direct examples of a hyperscaler taking outright control of energy development rather than simply procuring from it.

That deal sits at the sharp end of a broader trend. Utilities are now working with hyperscalers to design and connect on-site or near-site generation, including gas turbines, fuel cells, small modular reactors, solar microgrids and battery storage.

Meta signed a 20-year nuclear agreement with Constellation for power from the Clinton Power Station in Illinois from 2027, while Enbridge reached a final investment decision to build a 600MW solar project in Texas dedicated to a Meta data centre near San Antonio.

Meanwhile, Meta and Entergy struck a deal to deliver over 2GW to a single site, with Meta directly covering its share of the required new infrastructure, a structure analysts believe could become a template for future projects.

Nuclear moves from concept to commercial reality

The appetite for nuclear has shifted rapidly from aspirational to transactional. In 2025, the SMR-to-data-centre relationship moved from concept toward commercial reality, with multiple deals pairing high-cost nuclear development with the stable, creditworthy demand that only hyperscalers can provide.

Options range from funding entirely new nuclear technology to restarting previously retired plants, with small modular reactors attracting particular interest owing to their suitability for on-site deployment.

The economics are also aligning. Policy support has become more concrete, with government funding shifting from broad R&D towards commercially realistic SMR projects capable of being built this decade, a trajectory evident not just in the US but in the UK and Canada too.

A structural shift, not a procurement cycle

What sets this wave of deals apart is its intent. Traditional PPAs were always about matching consumption with clean generation somewhere on the grid. These new arrangements are about creating supply that would not otherwise exist and securing it before anyone else can.

The most significant deals being struck now are not just energy contracts. They are infrastructure partnerships, and they will shape where data centre capacity gets built for the next 20 years.

Tracking the deals that matter

We are monitoring the most significant utility, generator and hyperscaler partnerships as they happen, from dedicated nuclear offtakes and grid-bypass solutions to joint ventures and site-specific generation projects across Europe, North America and beyond. The Data Centre Power Deal Tracker, produced in association with Datacloud Global Congress 2026, follows the most significant utility, generator and hyperscaler partnerships globally. To read more click here.

Power procurement and energy infrastructure will be among the defining conversations at Datacloud Global Congress. Bringing together the senior executives driving investment decisions across the data centre, cloud and digital infrastructure sectors, the event provides the forum where deals like these get discussed, stress-tested and made. Secure your place here.