| Everyone knows the giant companies supporting AI. Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), and Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOG) are just a few of the household names. At this point, those Mag 7 stocks are crowded trades. To make money from AI, investors have to look in places where most others haven't. In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I discussed companies that own land and water rights, which will be important to data center build-outs. But it all starts with energy. Without cheap, reliable energy, data centers don't run, and AI (as well as many other technologies) lies dormant. We're going to need a lot of energy. OpenAI said that in the next eight years, it wants to build 250 gigawatts of new computing power. No big deal - just 20% of all of America's current electricity-generating capacity. The electricity generator to take note of is Black Hills (NYSE: BKH). Based in Rapid City, South Dakota, it serves 1.35 million customers in eight states, including Wyoming, which is becoming a hotbed for data center construction. It is also in the process of acquiring NorthWestern Energy (Nasdaq: NWE), which will add an additional 800,000 customers. Black Hills counts tech giants Microsoft and Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) among its data center clients. It will also supply electricity for a new 115-acre data center campus in Cheyenne. |