Greg Abel: Data Centers a "Significant Opportunity" for Berkshire Energy

Greg Abel's comments come from a career spent in energy: he joined Berkshire Hathaway when it acquired a majority stake in MidAmerican Energy in 1999, was tapped to become CEO of BHE, and was promoted to vice chairman of non-insurance operations in 2018. That background shapes how he frames AI — not as a software bet but as a power problem, with energy scarcity described as the constraint on AI development.

Berkshire's structure matters here. It owns roughly 200 companies, and BHE is one of the segments it breaks out. BHE reported $891 million in operating income in the second quarter of 2026, a 27% year-over-year increase, but the lowest among the reported segments, against total operating income of $13 billion. The other AI link the article notes is Berkshire's significant stake in Alphabet, where Google Cloud and Gemini AI have grown into a major part of the business.

Abel's condition — not selling to superscalers if it would raise rates for other customers — is likely to be the practical test of how far this opportunity goes. Growth in data center power demand could lift BHE's contribution to Berkshire's total, but only within the rate constraints Abel set, and the outcome hinges on whether deals can be structured that way.