✦ BHE & the AI-Power DividendNarrow moat

Berkshire's most direct AI exposure wears a hard hat. Berkshire Hathaway Energy — the utility empire Abel himself built — now serves a cluster of mega data centers that already draw roughly 8% of Iowa's peak load, with Microsoft, Google, Meta and Apple all operating campuses on MidAmerican's wind-heavy grid, and Abel projecting demand growth near 50% in five years¹. The response is old-fashioned and enormous: $33.3 billion of capital spending planned for 2026-2028, with MidAmerican's three-year budget up 65%, plus new solar and gas plants approved to keep pace².

The economics are the regulated kind Berkshire loves: every dollar of data-center-driven capex enters the rate base and earns a sanctioned return for decades, converting the AI boom into annuity income without touching a single AI stock. The caveats are a utility's: returns arrive slowly, regulators set them, and wildfire liabilities elsewhere in BHE have already shown how fast utility math can sour. Watch data-center load growth against the 50% projection, the capex actually entering rate base, and BHE's earnings line — the quiet subsidiary becoming the conglomerate's growth engine would be the Abel era's signature.