Oracle’s 1.3 GW Wisconsin AI campus faces severe power delays as grid review restarts, pushing customer delivery past 2027

The campus is being developed by Vantage for Oracle, with four data centers planned across the site. Construction is advancing, but the transmission connection is moving on a separate regulatory track that has returned to zero. In September 2025, American Transmission Company (ATC) asked the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) to approve the new high-voltage line serving the campus.

By December 2025, the PSC found the application complete and began its formal review, starting the legal countdown for a decision. Between January and July 2026, however, ATC altered the project and filed 564 additional documents that changed routes, introduced temporary bypass lines and updated cost estimates. An administrative law judge ordered ATC on July 1 to itemize each alteration and found on July 15 that the company had not complied.

The PSC withdrew its completeness finding in August 2026, ten months after the case opened, because it lacked confidence about the exact scope under review. Late additions would have required further environmental review that the legal deadline left no room for, so the project risked approval by default. The PSC closed the case on September 10, 2026, without ruling on the merits, and ATC refiled on September 18, restarting the statutory clock.

Construction itself does not appear to face the same scheduling problem affecting the transmission connection. “Construction at Port Washington is progressing steadily, but power delivery depends on a regulatory process that has restarted,” said Javier Reyes, head of data center research at Aterio. Permits have been secured, work has continued since December 2025, and September imagery shows two buildings already enclosed. The remaining structures are still undergoing construction, while equipment installation continues inside portions of the completed buildings.

The campus has differing power figures. Vantage describes it as carrying 902 MW of IT demand, whereas utility records describe 1.3 GW of total electrical requirements. The larger measurement includes cooling and other consumption beyond electricity reaching computing equipment. The first transmission stage could provide only partial service, and Vantage previously asked ATC about supplying roughly 310 MW during 2027. That request also projected 438 MW of peak demand during 2027, followed by 1.3 GW from 2028 onward across the campus.

As a result, initial grid access would not automatically mean every building could immediately support customer workloads at its intended capacity. A longer regulatory review would shift partial service toward June 2028 and full 1.3 GW availability toward April 2029, well beyond Oracle’s guidance. “Based on the public record, we see a meaningful risk that load arrives later than Oracle’s current guidance,” Reyes said.

Editor's Summary Oracle’s 1.3 GW Wisconsin AI campus faces power-delivery delays after regulators restarted the transmission review, with ATC refiling in September 2026. Construction is progressing, but full grid capacity may not arrive until April 2029 under a longer review, later than Oracle’s guidance. The case shows how AI data center buildouts can be constrained by transmission approval timelines.