Cool Vector

The data center industry has been caught off-guard by public backlash, and must respond with transparency and much deeper community engagement, three communications veterans tell Cool Vector. 
The Cool Vector episode, "Data Centers Have a Community Engagement Problem," includes Megan Baker, founder and principal of Tuli Public Affairs, Ilissa Miller, founder and CEO of iMiller Public Relations, and Phillip Koblence, CEO of Critical Ventures as well as co-founder of Nomad Futurist.
The experts unpack why data center projects are eliciting fierce local opposition. They discuss how, after decades of relative invisibility, digital infrastructure has suddenly become a lightning rod. Among the challenges, public dialogue conflates digital infrastructure with broader anxieties about AI, surveillance, and Big Tech overreach, even as demand for the industry's services has never been higher.
Baker, Miller, and Koblence trace data centers' problems to a pattern of reactive, legally guarded communication that skips community listening in favor of trying to sell a project's benefits. They argue that changing this pattern will require humanizing the industry, tailoring outreach to each community's specific concerns, and being more transparent about why a given project is being built where it is.
Among the key takeaways of this episode:
• Opposition to data centers is rooted in fear of AI, surveillance, and being taken advantage of by wealthy outsiders, which is why purely technical rebuttals rarely land with skeptical communities.
• Local elected officials often can't answer basic constituent questions about proposed projects, leaving them unable to defend their support. This was demonstrated when a longtime Utah senate leader lost his seat largely over his support for a high-profile data center project.
• Effective community engagement starts with understanding a community's specific values and priorities.
• The industry lacks shared standards or tools for navigating these conversations, and developers should treat community engagement lessons as something to share collaboratively rather than compete on, since reputational damage in one town can follow a company into the next.
Access the full transcript and a searchable library of content at the Cool Vector Substack
#coolvector #datacenters #digitalinfrastructure #communityengagement #publicaffairs

A boom in off-balance-sheet data center development is made possible by the good credit of hyperscaler customers, says Harold Chen, Senior Director in Fitch's Complex Credit Group.
In a conversation with Cool Vector, Chen says he expects courts to enforce the guarantees made to these special-purpose vehicles, and to their underlying bondholders, should hyperscalers find it necessary to walk away from data center lease agreements. 
Chen joins Hadassa Lutz, a partner at Cloud2Ground and host David Snow to explain how these partnership structures are designed to isolate projects and protect lenders, making it difficult to “throw a wrench” into the flow of cash used to repay that debt. But construction delays, power constraints, lease terms and performance requirements can still complicate the equation.
Among the key takeaways of this conversation:
• Shorter, rolling lease terms (say, four-year renewals instead of a single 15-to-20-year lease) introduce real non-renewal risk, but are favored by hyperscalers seeking maximum flexibility, and protection against obsolescence risk. 
• Power sources built and controlled by the data center developers (called 'behind-the-meter' power) bypass grid dependency, but they add project and performance risk, especially when the operator has no track record running power generation.
• Terminal value guarantees (TVGs) and termination fees can mitigate hyperscaler tenant walk-away risk. Hyperscalers generally have few easy "outs" from binding lease contracts once signed.
Access the full transcript and a searchable library of content at the Cool Vector Substack: https://coolvector.substack.com/p/what-might-throw-a-wrench-into-data?r=4tjd55
#coolvector #datacenters #infrastructure #creditratings #projectfinance #privatecredit

The growing implementation of liquid cooling technologies is forcing data center MEP engineers to rethink their fundamental design assumptions, says Chris Sutton, founder of Sutton Engineering which specializes in data center design.
Sutton tells Cool Vector that, while the electrical side of data center infrastructure reached a level of maturity some time ago, the mechanical side is now in the middle of a significant transformation, and keeping up with that transformation comes down to having a team of skilled engineers. Sutton Engineering's biggest focus right now is building a training program capable of bringing engineers from adjacent fields up to speed in the rapidly evolving world of data center MEP design.
Access the full transcript and a searchable content library at the Cool Vector Substack: https://coolvector.substack.com/p/the-big-game-changers-for-data-center?r=4tjd55&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
#coolvector #datacenter #AI #energy #infrastructure #MEP

Emerging and developing markets remain significantly underinvested in digital infrastructure, says Obinna Isiadinso, the global sector lead for data centers and cloud services investments at the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
"India today has something like 1.7 gigawatts of capacity, compared to Northern Virginia that has 3 or 4 gigawatts," Isiadinso tells Cool Vector, citing the country as an example of an emerging market facing a compute constraint. 
Isiadinso, whose team has invested in data centers since 2005 and now holds roughly $400 million in the sector out of a broader $3 billion digital infrastructure portfolio, walks through how the IFC identifies opportunity across roughly 20 priority markets, why its decades-long presence gives it credibility with regulators and governments other capital providers haven't yet reached, and which regions are pulling ahead in the race for capacity.
Key Takeaways:
• Asia leads IFC's regional exposure, followed by Latin America and Africa. India and Malaysia are the standout Asian markets, with recent IFC commitments including debt financing to expand NTT's platform in India and Yondr Group's 300-megawatt hyperscale facility in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
• Brazil, South Africa, and Poland anchor their regions. Brazil is IFC's top Latin American market, where it holds exposure through Scala Data Centers; South Africa holds roughly 60% of Africa's data center capacity; and Poland remains IFC's primary Eastern European focus, with growing interest in Romania and Bulgaria.
• AI demand is emerging alongside cloud. While collocation and cloud demand still dominate, IFC is starting to see meaningful AI-driven demand in its largest markets — particularly Brazil, India, and Malaysia.
• Projects above roughly 300 megawatts can outgrow the pool of institutional buyers able to acquire them once stabilized, though Isiadinso says those cases remain rare — most projects under 100 megawatts see strong acquisition interest.
Access the full transcript and a searchable archive at the Cool Vector Substack.
#digitalinfrastructure #datacenter #AI

Building AI infrastructure at gigawatt scale means "developing city-sized machines,'" says Craig Deering, senior construction manager at Oracle. 
Drawing on decades of experience — from dismantling AT&T and building the Baby Bells to leading cloud and now AI data center projects — Deering tells Cool Vector: "The challenges of developing a city-sized machine have been known for at least a century. We just need to realize that we're building at that scale."
Deering shares his outlook on the economics of AI compute, the human toll of building at unprecedented speed, and why he remains bullish on AI's impact on jobs despite decades spent watching technology reshape his industry.
Key Takeaways:
• Job sites that once had 1,200 workers now have 6,000 to 8,000, split across multiple companies — a human resource challenge on a scale Deering compares to building the Panama Canal or Gilded Age company towns like Hershey, Pennsylvania• Driving down the incremental cost of AI token production is the industry's central equation, tying directly into Jevon's paradox: as compute gets cheaper, demand explodes• Structural job displacement is real, but Deering argues history — from hand-drafting to CAD to BIM — shows technology ultimately expands opportunity rather than eliminating it
Access the full transcript and a searchable archive at the Cool Vector Substack.
#digitalinfrastructure #datacenter #AI

Data centers have access to plenty of power, but it's often stranded rather than put to use, says Ken Sullivan, co-founder and CEO of Bay Compute.
"Power is the bottleneck to AI growth," Sullivan says. "A lot of the 'colos' and data centers are operating at 30, 40, 50% average power utilization."
Sullivan lays out how the shift toward AI inference is intensifying the power problem, why colocation operators are now being forced to optimize infrastructure they've never had to think about before, and why he believes the industry's component-by-component fixes are hitting diminishing returns.
Key Takeaways:
• Inference workloads create a much larger amplitude in power spikes than traditional cloud or training data centers, driving down average utilization and worsening the stranded-capacity problem — especially at edge and colocation facilities.
• Bay Compute's customers are unlocking 10-20% more capacity. By reducing peak power events, the company says its customers are able to free up additional capacity and sell it on to their own customers.
• Unlike hyperscalers, which have spent 20 years building tools to optimize dollar-per-token and watt-per-token, colocation facility operators historically passed power costs straight to tenants and had no incentive to optimize until new power became scarce.
• Most data center projects aren't approved until a power contract is secured, a shift from the old land-first model, pushing developers into secondary and tertiary markets where power is available.
Access the full transcript and a searchable content library at the Cool Vector Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/coolvector/p/solutions-for-the-data-center-power?r=4tjd55&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
#coolvector #datacenter #AI #inference #energy #power #colocation

The biggest constraint facing data centers is finding the people capable of operating those data centers, says Brent Burnett, Managing Director and Head of Infrastructure and Real Assets at Hamilton Lane.
Burnett tells Cool Vector that as capital floods into digital infrastructure, the pool of management teams equipped to run complex, cap-ex-heavy platforms remains small, and the price of accessing them keeps growing.
In an in-depth conversation with Cool Vector's David Snow and United Integrity Advisors' Eli Scher, Burnett explains how Hamilton Lane screens operators, why current valuations concern him, and how the firm structured its recent continuation vehicle investment in Flexential.
Key takeaways:
• Digital infrastructure now dominates infrastructure portfolios. What was 8-10% of a typical fund's allocation a decade ago has grown to 30-40% today, with most fresh capital targeting data centers specifically.
• Valuation risk is "very acute" right now. Multiples that historically ran 16-18x have climbed into the mid-to-high 20s, and Burnett says he's seen irrational excitement among sellers with unrealistic expectations.
• Hamilton Lane avoids speculative build-and-hope bets. The firm favors platforms where growth is backed by existing, already-contracted tenants and a powered, permitted land bank.
• While many believe the biggest risk is technology disruption, it's actually execution. Burnett and Scher agree over-leveraged capital structures paired with growth plans that don't materialize pose a greater threat to the sector than any black-swan tech shift.
• Community and political pushback are rising risks too. As data centers scale, "stroke of pen risk" is growing, and Burnett says operators need to get smarter about community engagement or risk political backlash to their build-out plans.
Access the full transcript and a searchable content library on the Cool Vector Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/coolvector/p/for-hamilton-lane-good-data-center?r=4tjd55&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
#coolvector #datacenter #digitalinfrastructure #privateequity
Note: Hamilton Lane has $1 trillion in assets under management and supervision, composed of $141.8 billion in discretionary assets and $905.3 billion in non-discretionary assets, as of March 31, 2026.

The digital infrastructure industry is incredibly diverse and needs talent of all types, says Harris Hamid, a computer science student at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and a student advocate for non-profit Nomad Futurist Foundation. 
"No matter what you're doing, you can find a spot here," Hamid tells Cool Vector. 
Hamid emphasizes how the industry welcomes people from all backgrounds, recalling how he has already met graphic designers, engineers, and career-changers with different areas of expertise to offer. He encourages students to see Nomad Futurist as a resource for learning and networking, regardless of their major, emphasizing that there's a place in the industry for everyone.
Access the transcript and a searchable library of content at the Cool Vector Substack.
#datacenter #digitalinfrastructure #computerscience

Walter Cannon helped create and implement LinkNYC, the project that brought free public Wi-Fi to all five boroughs of New York City. Cannon tells Cool Vector about how the project came to be under the Bloomberg Administration, as well as the logistical and political hurdles of rolling out thousands of Wi-Fi kiosks.
Looking ahead, Cannon - a self-described "all-around technology guy" — discusses the growing need for low-latency infrastructure closer to end users, especially as AI adoption becomes more widespread.
Access the transcript and a searchable library of content at the Cool Vector Substack: 
#datacenter #digitalinfrastructure #newyorkcity #wifi

Artificial intelligence tools are being adopted across construction, including digital infrastructure construction, says Indigo Pinto, Co-Founder IBB Solutions, a management firm for digital infrastructure construction projects.
Pinto is also an ambassador for Nomad Futurist, and she reflects on discovering Nomad Futurist and how the phrase "the future is now" resonated with her view of the industry's trajectory, particularly when it comes to the rising generation of talent entering the field.
Access the full transcript and a searchable library of content at the Cool Vector Substack.
#datacenter #digitalinfrastructure #constructionmanagement #coolvector