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AI Gap Clock

Power

US vs China generation capacity and the bottlenecks in front of it. Capacity is not generation. Spare firm power is not solar nameplate.

Primary · stacked bars

Capacity by source

US: EIA net summer capacity, August 2026. China: NEA through September 2026. Capacity is not generation.

United States

1,283.2 GW shown

  • coal167.8 GW
  • gas516.6 GW
  • nuclear98.4 GW
  • solar231.3 GW
  • wind166.0 GW
  • hydro103.1 GW

China

2,467 GW shown

  • coal—
  • gas—
  • nuclear—
  • solar1,310 GW
  • wind700 GW
  • hydro457 GW

coal, gas, nuclear — Not in the NEA Q3 renewables briefing.

  • coal
  • gas
  • nuclear
  • solar
  • wind
  • hydro

PrimaryU.S. Energy Information Administrationas of Aug 2026

PrimaryEIA Table 6.2B (conventional hydro)EIA Table 6.2A (pumped storage)as of Aug 2026

PrimaryNational Energy Administration of Chinaas of Sep 2026

China renewables 2,518 GW · 60.94% of China total. The US six-source stack (1,283.2 GW) is below the EIA all-sources total 1,318.8 GW mainly because oil, biomass, geothermal and other sources are omitted. Small-scale solar is included in solar.

PrimaryNational Energy Administration of Chinaas of Sep 2026

PrimaryU.S. Energy Information Administrationas of Aug 2026

Primary · growth

Year-over-year additions

United States

57.2 GW

US net capacity change, August to August

Net all-sources, Aug 2025 → Aug 2026. Not gross additions.

PrimaryU.S. Energy Information Administrationas of Aug 2025 → Aug 2026

China

180 GW

China renewable additions, year to date

Renewable additions, first three quarters. Renewable stock 14.6% year-over-year.

PrimaryNational Energy Administration of Chinaas of Jan–Sep 2026

PrimaryNational Energy Administration of Chinaas of Sep 2026

China − US

Not tracked

—

Not a comparable pair. US is 12-month net all-sources; China is year-to-date renewable additions.

Primary · US only

US interconnection queues

In queue

over 2,060 GW

US generation + storage in interconnection queues

Projects

~8,200 projects

US active interconnection-queue projects

Median wait

over 5 years

US median interconnection wait, IR to COD

With IA

549 GW

US queue capacity with a draft or executed IA

1,312 GW generation + ~749 GW storage. LBNL Queued Up 2026 edition.

PrimaryLawrence Berkeley National Laboratoryas of end-2025

China

Not tracked

—

No comparable public figure.

Bottleneck

Gas turbine backlog and production

Under contract

122 GW

GE Vernova gas equipment under contract

Grew from 116 GW. Year-end aim ≥130 GW.

PrimaryGE Vernova (SEC exhibit)as of 3Q 2026

ProjectionGE Vernova (SEC exhibit)as of 28 Oct 2026

Production

20 GW/year

GE Vernova annual gas-turbine output, on track

24 GW/year · 30 GW/year

PrimaryGE Vernova (SEC exhibit)as of 2Q 2026

ProjectionGE Vernova (SEC exhibit)as of 2Q 2026

ProjectionGE Vernova (SEC exhibit)as of 2Q 2026

Estimate

Price note

$600/kW

Wood Mackenzie gas-turbine price, end-2027

195% since 2019. Estimate only.

EstimateWood Mackenzieas of 1 Apr 2026

Mitsubishi Power Savannah expansion $490M.

PrimaryMitsubishi Power Americasas of 23 Oct 2026

Not yet tracked

Spare dispatchable capacity

Firm capacity above recent peak — not nameplate solar. Solar does not run a training cluster at night.

United States

Not tracked

—

No single national figure published yet. NERC reports reserve margins by region.

NERC LTRA — where it would come from

China

Not tracked

—

No comparable public figure.

Primary · same IEA face

Data-centre electricity

All data centres, 2024 — the same IEA shares as the Gap Clock Power tile. Not AI halls alone.

United States

45%

US share of data-centre electricity

China

25%

China share of data-centre electricity

World

415 TWh

Global data-centre electricity

US ~45%China 25%

US vs China only (pairwise)

PrimaryInternational Energy Agencyas of 2024

Dated story · 30 Oct 2026 check

SpaceX blades and vanes

A dated story card, not a tracker. Only claims marked Verified in the scoping proposal. Unverified lines stay off the page.

Bastrop foundryBlades & vanesUp to 18 months
SpaceX and Tesla are each building 100GW/year of solar production capacity as fast as possible, but natural gas will still be needed to supplement and bootstrap solar for several years. The limiting factor for nat gas turbine production is casting the blades & vanes. By doing in-house casting at SpaceX, we can accelerate nat gas turbines coming online by up to 18 months, which is a profound game-changer.

PrimaryElon Musk on X; full text reprinted by TechCrunchas of 29 Aug 2026

Side panel · GEV backlog

122 GW

GE Vernova gas under contract, 3Q 2026.

PrimaryGE Vernova (SEC exhibit)as of 3Q 2026

  • PrimaryVerified

    The constraint on deployment of super intelligence is more in power and cooling and infrastructure than it is in chips.

    PrimaryMotley Fool transcript of SpaceX SPCX Q3 2026as of 20 Oct 2026

  • PrimaryVerified

    I would be surprised if we brought on less than 13 gigawatts of compute by the end of next year.

    13 GW

    PrimaryMotley Fool transcript of SpaceX SPCX Q3 2026as of 20 Oct 2026

  • PrimaryVerified

    We're actually going to aim for an incremental 20 gigawatts of power cooling and infrastructure next year.

    20 GW

    PrimaryMotley Fool transcript of SpaceX SPCX Q3 2026as of 20 Oct 2026

  • PrimaryVerified

    We're casting the blades and vanes for the turbines. When we talk to the turbine suppliers, they tell us that the blades and vanes are 12 to 18 months behind the rest of the turbine.

    PrimaryMotley Fool transcript of SpaceX SPCX Q3 2026as of 20 Oct 2026

  • Summary of sources

    Vertical integration for SpaceX / xAI own compute. Bastrop is blades-and-vanes casting, not full turbine assembly.

    Summary of sourcesSpaceX Q3 transcriptLatitude MediaTechCrunchas of 20 Oct 2026

  • PrimaryVerified

    SpaceX acquired the assets of APR Energy. The sale was confirmed by an FTC notice filed 14 May 2026; Musk said on 29 Aug 2026 that SpaceX — not Musk personally — bought it.

    PrimaryJacksonville Daily Recordas of 3 Sep 2026

Projections

Horizon

Coming later

Launch cost, orbital data centres, and fusion milestones sit here in a later pass. No numbers on this stub.

Methods

How these figures are kept

Primary is a checkable official or measured face. Estimate is a named reconstruction (Wood Mackenzie on this page). Projection is a stated forward aim. A blank is a blank — never a quiet zero.

Every numbered face has a chip with the source URL and an as-of date. A blank stays a blank — marked Not tracked, never a quiet zero. China queue times and China spare dispatchable have no comparable public figure.

This page does not replace the Power tile on the scoreboard. Same IEA 2024 shares; same vocabulary as About.

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