巴克莱警示数据中心电力设备周期见顶，西门子能源、ABB、施耐德面临量价双压

Companies making power and electrical equipment to serve data centers are facing growing risks of a pricing squeeze by top artificial intelligence labs, according to analysts at Barclays Plc.

The rapid build-out of data centers requires electrical infrastructure that brings power from the grid to AI servers, and the likes of Siemens Energy AG, ABB Ltd. and Schneider Electric SE have enjoyed a period of strong returns as a result.

But “peak cycle economics could soon be normalized,” according to analysts led by George Featherstone. As AI labs put more emphasis on profitability and competition for equipment supply heats up, the sector could face dual pressure on pricing and volumes, creating “the worst of all scenarios.”

The AI trade weakenedanew on Tuesday, extending a recent pullback as investors question how much longer the spending boom can last. Siemens Energy shares have dropped 31% from an April peak, trading near the lowest levels since January. Schneider Electric has fallen 22% from an August top, while ABB is down a similar amount since June.

Worries about slowing growth at Anthropic PBC, along with credit risks at neocloud operators like CoreWeave Inc., have weighed on investor sentiment in recent weeks.

In addition, Barclays said there are signs that frontier AI labs and hyperscalers are now pushing back on its supply chain, given rising scrutiny of investment returns and a recent increase in financing costs. That bodes ill for equipment vendors that have captured “supernormal returns” in recent years.

The analysts cite Nscale Ltd.’s talks with Anthropic to sell computing power that could be worth about $45 billion. On a per gigawatt and per year basis, the contract is priced well below recent benchmarks, for example CoreWeave’s short-term deals revealed in September.

Even though Nscale’s contract and CoreWeave’s deals aren’t like-for-like, that does suggest that a “clearly over-earning supply chain is being asked to think again about its seemingly endless ability” to raise prices and expand margins, they wrote.

Adding to challenges for the equipment vendors is competition, as a growing number of new entrants become encouraged by the industry’s “excessively good returns,” the analysts write.

Significant capacity expansions are occurring for power and medium voltage electrical equipment, two segments that have seen lead times spiking higher, Barclays said.