Key points
- Abel says energy is the constraint on the AI buildout
- Berkshire set three conditions for serving hyperscalers
- Iowa data centers were about 8% of load last year
- No Berkshire site has been rejected so far
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) chief executive Greg Abel called supplying power to AI data centers a "significant opportunity for Berkshire and Berkshire Hathaway Energy," then set out three conditions the company attaches to serving them. He has put the same terms to hyperscalers, state officials and regulators.
In the same CNBC "Squawk Box" interview, Abel described a second route into AI, Berkshire's stake in Google parent Alphabet, which the network valued at almost $36 billion. The interview aired live on Wednesday and CNBC published it in full on Friday.
The first is price protection for everybody else. "We are interested in serving these hyperscalers, one, if there was no impact to the rates of our other customers," Abel said. "And in fact, we've pretty much taken the approach there has to be a net benefit to our customers."
The second is water. "The communities have to understand the impact on water," he said, adding that the issue "has become much more manageable" as operators adopt technologies that cut usage.
The third is consent. "The communities have to be open to having the data center in their community," Abel said. "We very much believe in the fact that you have to be a welcomed member of the community."
He said that is getting harder. "There is a lot more pushback in the communities across the U.S.," Abel said, though he added that Berkshire has not yet lost a site over it. "We have not had any specific site rejected to date." Construction is continuing across the sites the company has underway. We reported last month on a New Jersey data center found running 45 unpermitted gas generators.
Abel has argued for years that power, not silicon, sets the pace. "I've sort of always had a strong view that energy would be the constraint," he said. "We can produce the energy." What he described as the real bottleneck is site readiness, meaning how long it takes to prepare land and infrastructure to the point where it can actually serve a data center.
He put a figure on what Berkshire Hathaway Energy already carries. In Iowa, where the utility has a substantial operation, "approximately 8 percent of our load came from data centers" last year. He said incremental load is still coming on, both from customers requesting service and from what the utility is able to supply.
Berkshire's role stops at the fence line. Abel said its sites "would be the energy infrastructure, not the data center site."
In response to local opposition, Abel pointed to the tax revenue reaching counties. In Iowa, still a heavily agricultural state, Abel said property tax relief and revenues supporting schools, police and fire have been "very, very substantial" in places where the energy infrastructure and a data center both went in.
