conceptstock-market
Colossus cluster clocks are not greenfield campus clocks
Notes
Colossus cluster clocks are not greenfield campus clocks
One-line summary: Issuer + NVIDIA clock Colossus first clusters at 122 / 91 / 64 days on a reused factory shell; SpaceX's own peer benchmark is ~2 years for a 100 MW greenfield. Fairwater WI is ~25 months announced-to-operational; Hyperion is ~19 months in and not described as online. Do not write the folklore 100-day clock as the 2026 fact.
The insight
A cluster bring-up clock (racks on an existing or rapidly converted shell → training) is a different unit from a campus clock (site control / announce → first training-useful MW on a purpose-built, usually grid-tied campus). Comparing Colossus 122 days to Microsoft Fairwater ~25 months or to SpaceX's two-year 100 MW greenfield line as if they measured the same thing is a unit error.
Evidence
- From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity: SpaceX 424(b)(4) — Colossus 1 first cluster ~100,000 H100 / ~130 MW in 122 days (repurposed Electrolux shell); Colossus II first cluster ~110,000 GB200 / ~210 MW in 91 days; second cluster 110,000 GB300 / 220 MW in 64 days.
- From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity: NVIDIA Oct 28, 2024 PR independently clocks the first 100,000-Hopper cluster at 122 days, and 19 days from first rack on the floor to training.
- From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity: SpaceX's own industry comparison is "an industry benchmark to bring online a 100 megawatt greenfield data center is approximately two years." That is SpaceX's comparison, not EIA.
- From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity: Epoch site-to-first-useful on Colossus 1 is Apr 24, 2024 start → Aug 11, 2024 first useful (25k H100 / 35 MW IT) ≈ 3.5 months; → Sep 2, 2024 100k cluster ≈ 4.3 months. Colossus 2: Feb 28, 2025 clearing → Oct 19, 2025 first cluster ≈ 7.7 months. The issuer day-counts are cluster clocks inside those spans.
- From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity: microsoft-fairwater Wisconsin — announced May 2024, fully operational Jun 23, 2026 (~25 months), ~10,000 workers "over the past two years." No MW published.
- From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity: Meta Hyperion / Richland Parish — originally announced December 2024; Jul 13, 2026 expansion to 5 GW IT "in advance of … coming online." ~19 months in and not yet described as online. Conventional hyperscale / grid-tied clock (Entergy gas, batteries, nuclear uprates) that Colossus skipped by reusing a factory + behind-the-meter turbines.
- From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity: CoreWeave Indonesia 360 MW "coming online in approximately 18 months" — a fleet self-build clock, not a Colossus-style shell retrofit. First CoreWeave self-build "expected to come online later this year" (Aug 11, 2026 call).
- From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity: EIA STEO (Aug 11, 2026) confirms data-center load as the demand driver and cut Texas 2027 load growth to 6% from 14% after the Aug 3 pause. The fetched page does not publish a campus build-time series.
Contradictions / tensions
- 122 days vs "100 days." Current issuer + NVIDIA say 122. The 100-day line is older marketing / recap lore. Do not write 100 days as the 2026 fact. From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity.
- Colossus 2 first-online date: Epoch Oct 19, 2025 vs Wikipedia ~January 2026. Open. Prefer Epoch + S-1. From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity.
- Not retrieved as campus clocks this pass: OpenAI/Oracle Stargate Abilene (SemiAnalysis "15 months" is search-only); Amazon Rainier; Google TPU campuses; Oracle official MW. Left blank, not invented. From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity.
Open questions
- Official TVA order text for the Aug 20 discourse claim of >100 MW firm to MZX Tech (not an official TVA page). From 2026-08-27-xai-data-center-build-tempo-vs-peers-and-ai-campus-capacity.
- Does any later issuer filing restate the 122/91/64 clocks as campus clocks? (Would collapse this distinction.)
Related
Referenced by