Data centres need power, and a group of energy companies rose on that promise. Since the chip sell-off they are falling in the same order as the chips, from the most speculative to the most solid. Utilities and oil barely moved. The market is not pricing an energy crisis, it is pricing less demand from AI.
## The AI power trade
When the AI build-out took off, investors bought the companies that would sell it electricity and equipment: power producers (Vistra, Constellation, Talen, NRG), turbine and grid makers (GE Vernova, Vertiv, Eaton), uranium (Cameco), small nuclear reactors (Oklo, NuScale) and fuel cells (Bloom).
## Where they stood on 31 October 2026
```chart
{"title": "Fall from the one-year high, 31 October 2026", "unit": "%", "series": ["Below the high"], "rows": [["NuScale", 87], ["Oklo", 81], ["AI power names, average", 42], ["Utilities (XLU)", 7], ["Oil and gas (XLE)", 0]], "note": "Percent below the 52-week high. Oil and gas were at their high."}
```
The AI power names were on average about **42% below their one-year high**. The broad utility sector was only 7% below, and oil and gas sat at their high.
## The order of the fall
The small nuclear names fell first and hardest: **Oklo -81%, NuScale -87%**, companies whose revenue is years away. Then turbines and grids. It is the same pattern as in chips: the periphery goes first, the core later, if at all.
## What it means
If the market feared an energy shortage, utilities and oil would be rising. They are not. The fall is concentrated in the names that depended on extra demand from data centres, so investors are pricing **less electricity demand from AI**, not an energy crisis.
## Why it matters beyond markets
Power is one of the largest running costs of serving a model. If the build-out slows, the pressure to serve AI more cheaply grows: smaller models, more compressed, less tested. We measure what that compression does to behaviour, for example [a model squeezed to 2 bits that starts to cave](/lab/two-bit-model-caves-under-pressure).
Live readings: [AI storm dashboard](https://xbe.at/storm/).
*Research notes, not investment advice. Data as of 31 October 2026, from public market data.*
This update is not available.