By Khadija Saeed
Publication Date: 2026-01-01 18:39:00
NEW YORK, January 1, 2026, 13:24 ET — Market closed
- U.S. markets were shut for the New Year’s Day holiday; data center-linked shares last closed lower on Dec. 31.
- Investors digested reports on xAI’s data-center buildout and a fresh China-linked chip demand headline.
- Traders are looking to Friday’s reopening and next week’s early read on U.S. factory activity.
Data center stocks ended 2025 on a softer note, with U.S. markets closed on Thursday for the New Year’s Day holiday and investors heading into 2026 still fixated on who captures the next leg of AI infrastructure spending. Nasdaq
The latest focus is on customer buildouts that can move the needle for suppliers of chips, servers and the power-and-cooling gear that keeps new facilities running. That matters as the market tries to separate durable demand from year-end positioning after an AI-driven run. Reuters
Elon Musk said on Tuesday his AI startup xAI bought a third building to expand its infrastructure, aiming to lift training capacity to nearly 2 gigawatts of compute power. xAI plans to start turning the warehouse into a data center in 2026, Reuters reported. Reuters
Musk wrote on X that the site, dubbed “MACROHARDRR,” would take xAI’s training compute to almost 2 gigawatts. Reuters cited The Information as reporting that the new data center and “Colossus 2” are near a natural-gas power plant xAI is building, amid environmental criticism of energy-hungry data centers. Reuters
In the last session of…
