Site-selection lead evaluating power + water + latency + jurisdiction for new hyperscale campus.

Audience Profile

• Age / Experience: 10–25 years; senior individual contributor / director level
• Current role: Site Selection / Real Estate Lead / Strategic Build Director (Hyperscaler / colo REIT / hyperscale builder)
• Top pain points:
• Power availability data is operator-confidential — relationship-driven
• Water rights timeline + community opposition risk
• Latency proximity to user base vs cheap power tradeoff
• Top decision blockers:
• Multi-decade land-bank vs near-term need
• Permitting timeline variance state-by-state

What This Segment Needs

*(No product_needs supplied — inferred from role + pain points.)*

• Information: Per-campus utility interconnection queue position, energized-vs-permitted MW, water-rights status, and statutory-vs-discretionary incentive terms — not just "shovel-ready" or contracted-backlog headlines.
• Tools: Trailing-90-day buildout-req trackers per operator (grid interconnection, MV power, liquid cooling) as a pre-lease demand proxy.
• Services: Grid-strategy and ISO/RTO interconnection advisory; water-rights and community-opposition due diligence; incentive clawback/sunset legal review.

Top 5 Companies for You (Fit Score)

| Rank | Company | Score | Why | |------|---------|-------|-----| | 1 | Digital Realty | 78/100 | Q3 2025 ~$1.5B, record bookings, >$800M annualized signed backlog; sustained Feb–May 2026 grid-interconnection & liquid-cooling hiring. Risk: utility interconnect queues gate backlog conversion timing. | | 2 | Iron Mountain | 75/100 | DC revenue +~25% YoY Q1 2025, 17 MW new leases atop record ~125 MW in 2024, >1 GW developable; dedicated Director, Energy & Grid Strategy (2026-03-25). Growth off a small base. | | 3 | Equinix | 75/100 | FY2025 ~$9.3B, 80+ consecutive growth quarters, xScale >$8B / 40+ facilities with GIC/CPP; liquid-cooling deployment hires (2026-02-24). Capex ramp ahead of ~6–7% revenue. | | 4 | Aligned Data Centers | 66/100 | Five buildout roles 2026-02-19→04-30 (grid interconnect, MV power, liquid cooling, multi-building campus). But business_signals_180d empty — zero pre-lease validation; financials are AI priors. | | 5 | Compass Datacenters | 66/100 | 5 reqs in 95 days incl. Director of Site Selection (2026-02-20); Brookfield + Ontario Teachers' backing. Single-tenant 50–200 MW build-to-suit concentrates per-campus counterparty risk; no customer wins confirmed. |

Deal-Breakers (Your Hard Preferences)

No hard preferences declared for this segment.

How to Evaluate Any Company in this Niche (Checklist)

• [ ] Check growth signals: count distinct buildout reqs (grid interconnection, MV power, liquid cooling, multi-building campus) posted in trailing 90 days — want ≥4 cross-discipline, not maintenance backfill.
• [ ] Check comp data: none supplied here — pull Levels.fyi / Built In for "Construction PM, Data Center" and confirm travel/per-diem load stated in the req.
• [ ] Check learning signals: confirm reqs cite >100 kW/rack direct-to-chip or rear-door HX cooling and multi-hundred-MW interconnection agreements — proxy for AI-density buildout vs legacy retrofit.
• [ ] Check stability signals: compare contracted backlog (e.g., DLR ">$800M annualized") to energized MW; treat empty business_signals_180d (Aligned, Compass) as no pre-lease confirmation.
• [ ] Check culture signals: ask the interviewer the IC ceiling — ladder topping at Senior/Manager with no Staff/Principal means execution cadence, not invention.
• [ ] Check jurisdiction: ask for the target campus's specific utility interconnection queue position and water-rights status, not aggregate "developable GW."
• [ ] Check incentive durability: ask which abatements are statutory vs discretionary and their clawback/sunset terms across an administration change.

Reverse-Hype Watch

• Iron Mountain: ~25% DC growth flatters a minority segment off a small base — total revenue up only ~8%, explicitly underweight vs DLR/EQIX.
• Equinix: "Build Bolder" materially increased development capex ahead of revenue — FY2025 growth still ~6–7%.
• Aligned: capacity-expansion hiring (multi-hundred-MW interconnection, multi-building campus) unbacked by any customer signal — business_signals_180d empty.

Under-reported for this segment: public filings broadcast contracted backlog and developable GW, but rarely disclose the variables that actually decide a campus — interconnection queue position, energized-vs-permitted MW, water consumption/rights, and incentive clawback terms. A dedicated "Director, Energy & Grid Strategy" or "Utility & Grid Interconnection" req (Iron Mountain 2026-03-25; Aligned 2026-03-27) is a sharper tell of real buildout readiness than any revenue line — yet it almost never appears in earnings coverage.