Day One - 10/28 (THIS IS THE 2025 AGENDA)Tuesday, October 28, 2025 - PST

• Who are the different data center customers and how do their facilities and use cases differ?

• How big is big? How big is big in 10 years?

• If AI and power are #1 and #2 what else is on the list? 

• AI and compute demand – what is the industry impact going forward? 

• The power supply arms race: At what point do data centers get kicked off the grid?

• Investment and M&A trends

• Comparing different models, markets, exits, de-risking strategies and market position
• Geographic focus: Tier 1 locations versus emerging markets? What about alternative power-independent sites?
• Investment preference: Chasing hyperscale giants or focusing on mid-sized 10-20MW facilities or the reliable enterprise colocation segment?
• Strategic approaches: Full platform acquisitions vs. joint ventures vs. standalone investments
• Capital allocation, capital stack and structure
• Critical factors for market dominance and competitive advantage
• What was the last disagreement with your financing partners? How was it resolved?
• Land vs. powered land vs. powered shell vs. turnkey: Which strategy are you pursuing?
• Your equity investors as more and 4x the funds focus on this area
• Getting involved in facilities that would like to expand vs tackling growth of new AI-specific construction
• PE players: To what extent does your team engage in operational management details?

In today’s high-stakes data center investment landscape, speed and precision in supply chain execution are critical to unlocking returns and managing escalating costs. This session offers private equity executives a strategic roadmap for scaling construction and infrastructure delivery at hyper speed. Whether you're an active owner deeply involved in development decisions or a passive overseer focused on portfolio performance, you'll gain insights into optimizing procurement, navigating vendor relationships, and leveraging integrated solutions to accelerate timelines without compromising quality. The discussion will also explore how macroeconomic headwinds—like tariffs and material volatility—are reshaping cost structures, and how resilient sourcing strategies can safeguard capital efficiency and long-term ROI.

• Is your lease financeable, and if financeable does it contain terms that adversely affect your interest?
• Yield on cost/powered shell deals: What’s appropriate to be included in costs?
• Purchase options and tenant transfers: When can they be exercised and at what price?
• Landlord guaranties: what’s being guaranteed and what is the necessary credit for that landlord guarantor?
• Powered shell vs. turnkey landlord vs. NNN leases and their cap X and operational responsibility
• Force majeure: SLAs, equipment and power procurement delays
• In colocation leases are you seeing any free rent?
• Service level agreements vs. controlling things out of control
• New, untraditional tenants like GPU, high-performance computing and quantum computing as a service, AI model training specialists and edge infrastructure providers
• New technical, infrastructure, operational, risk management and compliance factors to consider in this market

• What are your favorite valuation metrics, asset-specific factors and market-driven valuation elements?
• Do you expect multiples to remain high?
• Valuing properties that are future proofed for higher density servers and other critical developments
• Colo vs. hyperscale
• Lease term and lessee evaluation
• Impact of rising cost of insurance
• Does sustainability impact valuation?
• How are all the mega data centers impacting smaller centers’ valuation?
• JV vs. property vs. company valuation
• Where will value be in ’26?

• Getting a major utility to help back your off-the-grid project… Anatomy of a strategic alliance, partnership or joint venture between data center operators and electric utilities
• When is on campus the best choice? Which BYOP strategies are you favoring, is it a bridge/backup or prime/permanent approach?
• Evaluating your mix of generators, batteries and renewable sources for more than just warming coffee pots: What should be the mix? Clean energy practicality and dissecting the greenwashing
• What are your options if you can’t get adequate power delivered before tenant termination rights come up? Can force majeure apply?
• Looking at Tier 1 market challenges
• Examining local power market changes
• Powering AI vs. traditional data centers
• Grid/off-grid combination approaches
• Integrating load management: How far can software or other optimization techniques get you?
• Nuclear power beyond the 3-mile hype
• Timeline for getting transformers and substations

• Financing shovel ready vs. construction projects
• How do debt providers underwrite the higher costs?
• Where do good assets go to finance?
• Comparing debt from real estate vs. infrastructure funds
• Credit rating and debt service ratio implications of debt
• Comparing terms of construction to perm vs. stabilized assets vs. refinancing in different markets for hyperscale vs. edge opportunities
• When to hedge
• Is the ABS market maxed out? How are the alternatives looking?
• Looking at the sale leaseback market
• Debt or equity or pref: Where is the value today for the investor vs. owner?

This case study examines the development of large-scale data center infrastructure across key U.S. markets. It will explore the full lifecycle of mission-critical projects—from site selection and entitlement through design, construction, and commissioning. These facilities, often spanning millions of square feet and hundreds of acres, serve a diverse mix of users including enterprise tenants, hyperscale platforms, and research institutions. The discussion will also highlight how data center designs are evolving to accommodate high-performance compute environments, reflecting growing demand from global technology firms, AI-driven applications, and academic research initiatives.

• Risk management and what are the risks of investing in a large AI data center in a tertiary market compared to a primary market? Remember the dot.com bust… How are you protecting yourself against the AI market cratering and market saturation?
• The latest end user requirements for AI-driven data centers
• Will data center clusters be the dominant force shaping campuses?
• Financing, valuing and structuring the AI data center vs. others
• Capital deployment timelines
• Deep seek update, AI inference computing and Chip SAS: How are they changing the data center industry? How is the rest of the AI market evolving and how will that be impacting all facets of the industry?

• Joint venture vs. straight equity vs. pref equity waterfalls, promotes and other terms
• What kind of exits exist for data centers and where do you see this market evolving the most?
• Does location matter and how do you assess the energy needs and requirements before making an investment?
• Single tenant user or multi-tenant co-location: Is there a difference in cap rates or how they are financed?
• Land and construction financing vs. stabilized acquisition
• How is oversea equity looking in this political climate? How about pension and other LP monies? • Considering the tenant and building spec
• Equity requirements for built-to-suit vs. spec vs. stabilized vs. retrofits
• Risk-adjusted return expectations across different data center asset classes

• What opportunities and risks are we seeing emerge from policy for data center developers?

• Federal and state regulations that will impact the most

• Will the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) under Trump make or break different power arrangements and business models?

• How are state regulators grappling with affordability and rising data center load? What lessons can we glean from large load tariffs implemented to date?

• Will other states like Ohio, Pennsylvania or Georgia follow Texas’ lead with their own versions of Senate Bill 6?

• What is likely to happen in the PJM market as it works to address the 30 GW of projected data center load by 2030?

• Will EPA and/or state environmental regulators allow for more flexible operation of backup generation to support grid stability?

• How can states and market operators support demand flexibility at new large loads?

• The future of ESG and data centers

• How could the Trump administration support data canter buildout? 

• The Return of the Jedi vs. and the return of 3 Mile Island: Where are we with nuclear power for data centers?

• US-China dynamics, export controls, and foreign power generation issues that US hyperscalers and investors should be thinking about