The AI Data Center Race Heats Up: Three Winners Getting Paid Now, One Waiting for Next Year
Four companies are betting everything on the AI data center boom, but their paydays fall on wildly different timelines and their risks look nothing alike. Before you pick one, find out which three are already collecting cash and what separates…
Eaton (NYSE:ETN | ETN Price Prediction), Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX), Fermi (NASDAQ:FRMI), and Vistra (NYSE:VST) are all built on the same idea: AI is pushing up demand for data center capacity and electricity. Their return timelines differ. Three of them sell products and services today, but Fermi is still pre-revenue, and staged delivery under its anchor contract is expected to begin in late 2027.
We judged all four on five measures:
- How much revenue they earn from AI and data centers today
- Backlog and booking momentum
- Margins
- The strength of their guidance
- Execution and financing risk
Fermi’s risk is a different kind from the other three, so it appears at number 4 as a separate case. The three companies getting paid now follow in ranked order.
4. Fermi Is a Development Project With a 2027 Payday
Fermi is a pre-revenue, development-stage company building the Project Matador campus in the Texas Panhandle. The bull case rests on signed contracts and permits. Fermi signed a 15-year binding lease with TensorWave covering 222 MW, which the company says represents $6.50 billion in contracted revenue. It holds a 6 GW federal air permit, and turbines delivered to the Port of Houston bring its secured power to 1.2 GW. On October 13, Barron’s reported that shares jumped on a chipmaker-related deal and that analysts see hurdles ahead (Barron’s). That deal is a separate announcement from the binding TensorWave lease.
Fermi has never recorded revenue. It lost $486.38 million in 2025, or $1.13 per share. Over six months, its cash fell from $408.5 million to $91.7 million. A class action suit says that the company overstated tenant demand.
A prospective customer also terminated an advance construction agreement in December 2025. Fermi went public at $21.00 per share. The stock now trades at $3.72.
Fermi is classified as a specialty real estate investment trust (REIT) and is seeking REIT qualification, and it has no revenue and pays no dividend. Its REIT label reflects its tax structure, and any income depends on future power delivery.
3. Vistra Sells Power Now and Has Contracts Starting in 2027
Vistra sells electricity from its plants in Texas (the ERCOT grid) and the mid-Atlantic and Midwest (the PJM grid). In the second quarter, Ongoing Operations adjusted EBITDA rose to $1.77 billion from $1.35 billion, even though $472 million in unrealized derivative losses pulled GAAP net income down to $305 million. The AI layer is contracted: long-term power purchase agreements with a hyperscaler at its PJM nuclear sites begin contributing in 2027. Vistra also committed up to $1.0 billion to Helix, a digital infrastructure venture formed with partners that include the Kuwait Investment Authority.
Vistra reaffirmed its guidance, and management said 2027 is moving toward the lower end of its range because Texas power prices for future delivery have fallen. The company pays $0.91 per share a year in dividends and has bought back about $6.5 billion of stock since 2021. The stock trades at 13x forward earnings.
2. Equinix Turns AI Traffic Into Recurring Rent
Equinix leases data center space (colocation) and charges for the network links between customers (interconnection). Second-quarter revenue reached $2.625 billion, beating the $2.58 billion consensus, at a 53% adjusted EBITDA margin. Annualized gross bookings rose 23%, and the company added a record 9,700 net interconnections. Management called its higher outlook “the largest single guidance raise in the history of our company.” The trade-offs include capital spending of $5 billion to $7 billion a year through 2029, rising leverage, and a valuation of 52x forward earnings. The quarterly dividend rose to $5.16 from $4.69, and management expects dividend growth to roughly match growth in AFFO per share (adjusted funds from operations, the main REIT cash flow measure).
1. Eaton Has the Biggest Revenue and the Deepest Backlog
Eaton sells switchgear, backup power systems (UPS), and, after buying Boyd Thermal, liquid cooling. Second-quarter revenue rose 21.4% to $8.531 billion, and adjusted EPS of $3.15 beat estimates for the fifth straight quarter. Electrical backlog grew 43%. Eaton raised full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $13.40 to $13.60. Its chief executive said total U.S. data center backlog has reached “307 gigawatts, or 15 years of backlog at 2025 build rates.” The weak spot is debt: long-term debt rose to $18.5 billion from $8.8 billion. The stock trades at 27x forward earnings. The quarterly dividend rose to $1.10 from $1.04.
What to Watch as Each One Starts Paying
These four pay off on different timelines. Eaton, Equinix, and Vistra already produce cash flow and pay dividends that are growing, giving them current income profiles. Fermi carries development-stage risk, and any delay would weigh directly on its outlook. (We rounded up seven non-chipmaker suppliers riding the same AI data center expansion in a free report you can grab here.) To judge whether Fermi is turning contracts into delivered power, watch for roughly 200 MW of initial commercial power within six months, the TensorWave delivery start, new binding customer agreements, the pace at which it uses its convertible note proceeds, and the outcome of the class action.
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Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.
Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community.
Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.
Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions.
