AI Data-Centre Tenants Now Seek $5 Million or More a Day in Late Fees, The Information Reports
The Information reports that AI data-centre tenants are writing late-delivery fees of $5 million or more a day into leases and that the penalties have spawned new insurance. A tenant asked for $1 million a day this spring, according to the same report as relayed by BeInCrypto. SB Energy's IPO filing shows how one such clause works: OpenAI's affiliate gets escalating rent credits if the Ohio campus is delivered late.
The cost of a late data centre is moving onto the builders: tenants racing for AI capacity are pricing each day of delay into their leases, according to The Information. The Information reported on Sunday, October 25 that tenants now demand $5 million or more a day in late-delivery fees, up from $1 million this spring, and that brokers such as Marsh have started offering "delay-in-delivery" coverage.
What has been reported#
BeInCrypto, in an analysis syndicated on Yahoo Finance, says AI companies "now demand $5 million or more for every day a data center opens late." It says that this spring one tenant asked for $1 million a day, citing The Information.
What one filing shows#
SB Energy's amended IPO filing, dated September 21, says an OpenAI affiliate signed 17 leases on August 17 for its planned PORTS-Pike campus in Pike County, Ohio, designed for about 8.0 gigawatts of IT capacity. If SB Energy misses the target ready-for-service dates, the tenant gets a credit of one day's base rent per day of delay for the first 90 days and two days' rent per day after that, which the filing classifies as liquidated damages. The filing says the tenant cannot end those leases for missed construction milestones, and that the deadlines extend day for day for tenant delays, force majeure and utility delays.
That clause sits on top of a financing stack built to absorb construction risk. When the leases were signed, Nvidia announced a $1.5 billion SB Energy investment and residual-value guarantees capped at $105 billion for the first phase of the campus. Read together, the two documents show where the risk of a late opening lands: the tenant is compensated in rent credits, while the developer and its backers carry the cost.
Limits#
- The $5 million and $1 million figures and the insurance angle come from a single paywalled report by The Information, as summarised by BeInCrypto. Neither names the tenants or developers involved.
- The SB Energy lease terms here come from the filing itself, which gives about 8.0 gigawatts for the campus, not the 10 gigawatts BeInCrypto cites.
Sources#
- The Information (Ann Davis Vaughan): data-centre late-delivery fees and new insurance (October 25, 2026; paywalled)
- BeInCrypto via Yahoo Finance: AI Just Put a $5 Million-a-Day Price Tag on Its Biggest Bottleneck (October 25, 2026)
- SB Energy, Inc.: Form S-1/A, Amendment No. 2 (SEC filing, September 21, 2026)