One signal

Update What changed

Epoch AI has put year-by-year numbers on how much of the world's new AI compute its data centre map actually sees. In a post on 16 September, the research group estimated it has captured about 53% of all compute newly deployed in 2026 so far, against 39% of what went in during 2025 and 26% of 2024's deployments.

Set beside the map's headline figure of roughly 44% of global AI compute, the breakdown shows that coverage is not spread evenly across history. This year's construction is the best-documented slice, and each earlier vintage thins out behind it, which fits a dataset built from satellite imagery, permits and public documents: fresh builds leave fresh records, while older sites have to be reconstructed from whatever survived.

For anyone using the explorer to track where new capacity is landing, the practical reading is straightforward. The recent figures are the strongest, the pre-2024 stock is the softest, and with 47% of this year's deployments still unaccounted for, roughly half of 2026's new compute remains outside the frame.

Sources and evidence

• EpochAIResearch on X: So far in 2026, we’ve captured an estimated 53% of all newly deployed compute. That compares to 39% of compute deployed in 2025 and 26% in 2024.: Epoch AI estimates it has captured 53% of all AI compute newly deployed in 2026 so far, compared with 39% of compute deployed in 2025 and 26% in 2024.

Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.

Update What changed

The arithmetic behind Epoch AI's data centre coverage has come into view. In a follow-up post, the Epoch AI Research account explains how the project estimates the compute it has yet to capture: its AI Chip Owners project tracks how much AI compute has been delivered to customers, and that total stood at about 20.3 million H100-equivalents by the end of 2025.

The method is pleasingly blunt. Nobody can survey a data centre its owner has never mentioned, but chips are counted as they ship. The thread sets that delivered total against the compute Epoch knows is running inside the facilities its database already covers, and the gap between the two is where unmapped hardware hides. Delivered silicon is the denominator doing the heavy lifting.

Two hedges belong with the number, both from Epoch's own framing. Delivered is not the same as racked, powered and earning its keep, and an end-of-2025 total sits a step behind a map refreshed this month, so read 20.3 million H100e as a floor with dust on it rather than a live census. Even so, it is the yardstick any coverage share should be judged against, and it will move every time the ship counters do.

If a coverage estimate leans on chips shipped rather than sites spotted, does that make it more trustworthy than satellite surveying, or more fragile?

Sources and evidence

• EpochAIResearch on X: How do we know how much compute we haven’t captured yet? Our AI Chip Owners project estimates how much AI compute (in H100e) has been delivered to customers.: Epoch AI's AI Chip Owners project estimates that about 20.3 million H100-equivalents of AI compute had been delivered to customers by the end of 2025, the chip-shipment total its AI Data Centers work pairs with operational compute inside covered facilities to gauge how much compute sits outside its map.

Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.