What Does the Power Shortfall Mean for Semis?

Morgan Stanley's Global Thematics & US Semiconductors report addresses the three most pressing investor questions on the US data center power shortfall: 1) the impact on semis and the rest of the AI value chain, 2) who can get access to power, and 3) potential upside drivers that could close the shortfall. The firm sizes the US data center power shortfall at 57 GW from 2026-28, or 32 GW net of "time to power" solutions, translating to a 34% net US power shortfall, driven by increasingly power-hungry rack-level GPU architectures (NVL72/144). Nvidia and Broadcom's 2027 numbers are not at risk given conservative guidance, management's line-of-sight into chip placement, geographic expansion, and higher tokens per GW;