Cool Vector

How will the tariff imbroglio impact data center development in the US, which relies heavily on imported components? Cool Vector convened a panel of experts, including the CFO of a major data center company, to compare notes on supply chain disruptions, critical equipment and what happens to compute demand in economic downturns. This episode of Cool Vector Hot Takes features a lively conversation...

The private equity firm that created ⁠ Digital Realty ⁠sees a "wealth of opportunities" in digital infrastructure, but avoids hyperscaler mega-projects, says Mark Prybutok, a Managing Director at ⁠ GI Partners ⁠ and Head of the Data Infrastructure strategy. In 2001, GI Partners made its very first investment as a firm in a portfolio of distressed data centers reeling from the dotcom crash. In 2004...

The launch of a new data center 'pod' business is being met with surging customer demand, highlighting the need for edge digital infrastructure in remote areas, according to the leadership of Duos Edge AI.  In an extensive interview with Cool Vector,  Doug Recker, President of Duos Edge AI, and Adrian Goldfarb, CFO of parent company Duos Technologies Group, describe how edge data centers offer an...

Interest in ETA careers is rising "exponentially" among MBA candidates at what is widely regarded as the intellectual birthplace of Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition, according to three leaders of the Stanford Graduate School of Business' ETA club. In a joint interview with Search Party, president Michelle Nguyen and vice presidents Ruby Au and Laura Kiehl share details of the club's mission to...

How is it that Denmark, with a population of 6 million, has become a major nexus for sustainable data centers? Cool Vector convened a lively, in-depth conversation with CEOs from Digital Realty, atNorth and Danish Datacenter Industrien to learn the country's formula for public-private collaboration and digital infrastructure success.  Joining the conversation are Pernille Hoffmann, CEO of Digital...

Data center investment strategies that focus on ground-up development in unconventional locations are more complex, and therefore more likely to generate stronger returns, says Mark McComiskey, a partner at AVAIO Capital . In an extensive conversation with Cool Vector, McComiskey explains that many private capital firms active in digital infrastructure invest in existing assets, or compete for sit...

This episode of Cool Vector Hot Takes tackles four hot topics in the global digital infrastructure market: 1) Has Microsoft been oversupplied data centers? 2) Inside the plan for Southeast Asia’s largest data center 3) Real estate investor love for data centers keeps rising 4) Blackstone’s low-carbon power move in Virginia’s data center alley. This round, the Cool Vector editorial team of David Sn...

Infranity's ambitions to become a global player in the infrastructure debt market have advanced with the establishment of a US office. Cool Vector caught up with two Infranity partners to learn about the sustainable lending opportunity in North America, the risk-reward profile of co-location data centers and the limits of the energy transition.  Infranity, based in Paris, launched seven years ago...

A shortage of construction workers with skills specific to data centers is hindering the growth of digital infrastructure, says Amazon Web Service's former Worldwide Head of Engineering, Construction and Real Estate. In a wide-ranging Cool Vector interview, Sandra Benson, now Vice President of Industry Transformation at Procore Technologies, says of the global race to construct data centers: “ We...

In his 35 years in the power business, ⁠EnCap Investment⁠'s James Hughes has never seen a market as "strange" as the current one, driven by data center inelastic demand as well as industrial projects across the US.  Hughes is a Managing Partner and head of the EnCap's energy transition business, which last May raised a $1.5 billion fund to invest in power, low-carbon fuels and carbon management. I...

The NEW Episode of Cool Vector delves into the sudden rise of DeepSeek, NVIDIA’s share swoon, the implications of overbuilding in the data center space, Stargate’s shock-and-awe, $500 billion digital infra announcement, tough sledding in the private capital markets, and why Phil, Nabeel and David enjoy the topic of data centers so much.    In “Cool Vector Hot Takes,” Phillip Koblence, Nabeel Mahmo...

Ardian's very first investment in a data center company shows it is "quite convinced on the AI opportunity in Europe," says Pauline Thomson, Head of Data Science and a Managing Director at the $176 billion investment firm ⁠ Ardian⁠ . In a Cool Vector interview, Thomson describers the thesis behind Ardian's $1.2 billion investment in Verne, an Iceland-based, green data center company with pan-Nordi...

The data center industry is uniquely positioned to integrate workers from a broad array of backgrounds, which is good news, given the rapid aging of the industry's original workforce. According to three veterans of the industry, more needs to be done to elevate awareness of careers in data centers among workers in other industries, as well as among young people raised in a digital world, but unawa...

David Capobianco's company, ⁠LandBridge⁠ , owns 270,000 surface acres in West Texas, and he's pleased to explain why the land's profitability has tripled in three years. The reason has to do with data centers. LandBridge is a publicly traded affiliate of Five Point Energy, of which Capobianco is CEO. The company's share price is being carefully watched by investors looking for evidence of a new pa...

Private equity firm ⁠Actis⁠ is building data centers around the world while maintaining strict standards around sustainable energy, water and social impact. And the firm's impact is about to get bigger. Actis and General Atlantic recently merged to create an $87 billion investment platform, with Actis focused on the huge opportunity in sustainable infrastructure, largely in growth markets across A...

Data center real estate investment trusts (REITs), like Equinix and Digital Realty Trust, differ from traditional REITs in their higher operational intensity and reliance on artificial-intelligence tailwinds for growth, says Harold Chen, Director of Commercial Real Estate at Fitch Ratings . Chen, whose team has assigned investment-grade ratings to Equinix and Digital Realty, says the companies ben...

"I kid you not. . . at least once a week, I've got a conversation going with somebody who sits in digital infrastructure private equity, and they say to me, 'If you know somebody, or a team, that does XYZ in the data center space, let me know. I'd love to meet them, because that is the type of business model that we could put hundreds of millions, if not not billions, into.'"   The amount of priva...

Partners Group was already bullish on AI when, in 2022, the firm invested $1.2 billion in EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure. Then the debut of ChatGPT a few weeks later blew to lid off their initial assumptions of growth. In the post-ChatGPT world, the hyperscaler market served by EdgeCore saw an "explosion of demand for capacity," says Diffendal who, in a wide-ranging interview, explains the critic...

A conversation with Omar Jaffrey, founder of digital infrastructure private capital firm ⁠Palistar Capital⁠ , which is currently investing from a $1.9 billion fund. Jaffrey gives a grand tour through the digital infrastructure investment opportunity, in which he says builders of scale will have advantages in winning customers. He cautions that some investors confuse the full stack of technology, s...

John Siegel, a Partner at private equity firm Columbia Capital, offers a deep dive into the physical assets necessary to power an AI-driven internet, including the fiber optic cables that connect the growing population of data centers around the world, and the nations jockeying for position to build digital infrastructure hubs. In a wide-ranging conversation, John shares his views on the demand dr...

Digital infrastructure has a voracious appetite for energy, but the electric utility industry is filled with apprehension and lacks 'muscle memory' to 'build big things,' according to Brian Janous, co-founder of sustainable energy specialist Cloverleaf Infrastructure, as well as the former head of data center energy for Microsoft. In a wide-ranging interview with Cool Vector, Janous describes how...

Financial journalist David Snow introduces Cool Vector, a new video-podcast that will chart the rise of data centers and the digital infrastructure asset class. On a regular basis, Cool Vector will convene expert conversations about the role that institutional investment capital will play in the build-out of digital infrastructure around the world, and focus on the overlapping long-term trends of...