A large project announcement does not establish funding
Dzieza describes developers announcing large possible projects to attract a company such as Meta. A site’s power capacity, footprint and possible permits do not mean construction funding is in place. He calls these “paper data centers” a symptom of a broader race.
Supporting evidence
Original excerpt
So, you have these so-called paper data centers out there, but it is a symptom of the broader race dynamic.
Context
One consequence of that is that you have a lot of announcements. A lot of announcements for developers say, “I’ve got a 10-gigawatt facility here. We’re building this gigantic facility, it’s going to be the biggest data center in the world.” This happens not just with Kevin O’Leary, but also basically what they’re saying is, “Hey Meta, if you wanted to get involved with this, you could have the biggest data center in the world. You could have a 10-gigawatt facility here.” It has that power capacity, maybe it has permitting for that and has the physical footprint for it. It doesn’t mean we have funding to build a 10-gigawatt facility or anything like that.