Sovereign/national AI compute under EU jurisdiction. Gartner sovereign cloud price index 2024: government buyers pay 15–30% premium for data residency + security certification. Evroc/Gaia-X sizing implies 60–75% utilization in first contract cycle. EU AI Act + GDPR data-residency requirements create durable captive demand above open-market alternatives. Pricing premium: 20%.
Marginal: capital availability is binding — programme scale or returns at risk.
Binding constraint
Financing cost or availability caps the investable programme
The project cannot proceed at target scale or requires equity substitution that materially reduces returns.
The facility costs $40B over 15 years — even empty. A 10% IRR requires $4B/year in net revenue. Very few entities can credibly underwrite that.
Near-binding risks
35 percentage points below the binding threshold
48 percentage points below the binding threshold
Regime 2 — Marginal: Mild supply-demand imbalance. Utilisation pressure is building but the facility remains cash-generative; one or two constraint releases would restore balance.