Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has agreed to acquire energy and data center infrastructure firm Intersect in a $4.75 billion cash deal, deepening its push to secure power for the next wave of AI growth.
The acquisition is designed to accelerate the buildout of data centers and on-site power generation, bringing Intersect’s multi-gigawatt energy projects and infrastructure expertise closer to Google’s expanding AI operations.
What Alphabet is buying — and what’s staying out of the deal
Under the agreement, Alphabet will acquire Intersect’s development platform, team, and multiple gigawatts of energy and data center projects, either in development or under construction, building on the companies’ existing partnership.
Intersect will continue to operate as a standalone company under its own brand, led by founder and CEO Sheldon Kimber, while working closely with Google’s technical infrastructure group on current and future projects. One of those plans includes a co-located data center and power site already under construction in Haskell County, Texas.
Not all assets are included in the transaction. Intersect’s operating assets in Texas and its operating and in-development assets in California will remain outside the deal and continue as an independent company backed by existing investors.
Framing the acquisition, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Intersect will help Google “expand capacity” and “operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load.”
The real AI bottleneck
As AI models scale, the constraint is no longer access to advanced chips, but access to electricity. Data center projects across the US are delayed by grid congestion, long interconnection queues, and limited transmission capacity.
Kimber underscored the urgency, saying “modern infrastructure is the linchpin of American competitiveness in AI.” He cited co-locating data centers with dedicated power generation — combining renewables, flexible backup sources, and energy storage — as a faster alternative to grid-dependent builds, aligning closely with Google’s broader infrastructure strategy to bring capacity online in parallel with AI demand.
Watts before workloads
The deal allows Alphabet to bring power generation and data center capacity online at the same time, rather than waiting years for grid connections to clear.
In his blog post, Kimber described the current grid as a limiting factor for AI, writing that the US has “racks full of GPUs that can’t be energized because there isn’t enough electricity for them.”
Intersect’s model focuses on what Kimber calls “bring your own generation,” co-locating data centers with renewables, flexible backup power, and battery storage. The approach is built to bypass congested transmission networks and reduce reliance on traditional baseload plants.
For Alphabet, the acquisition extends its effort to unlock new energy supply alongside AI expansion, using on-site generation and emerging energy technologies to increase capacity without shifting costs onto existing grid customers.
Global data center investment surged past $61 billion in 2025, hitting a record as companies pour capital into infrastructure to support AI growth.