Not Your Father’s Data Center - Data Center Industry Trends: What's on the Horizon from PTC '25

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Host Raymond Hawkins is live from the picturesque PTC 2025 in Honolulu, Hawaii, joined by three seasoned industry experts: Martin Antunez from LATAM Entry LLC, David Liggit from datacenterHawk, and Barro Luitjes from KevlinX.Martin, the founder and CEO of LATAM Entry LLC, provides insights into the Latin American data center ecosystem, focusing on subsea cables, land developers, and fiber providers. The discussion highlights the region's fast-growing market, the substantial investments in infrastructure, and the challenges like energy tariffs and government regulation.David Liggit, founder and CEO of datacenterHawk, offers a comprehensive view of the North American data center market. The conversation explores the unprecedented growth driven by AI, emerging secondary and tertiary markets, and the importance of holistic strategies for power and community relationships.Barro Luitjes, strategy head at KevlinX, discusses the European data center landscape, emphasizing the shift to underserved regions due to regulatory constraints in traditional markets. He also talks about the importance of educating stakeholders and partnering with power providers for sustainable growth.Timestamped Overview00:00 Intro & Driving Data Center Growth LATAM04:42 Bridging US and Latin America07:42 Streamlining Deal-Making Insights09:33 Navy Influence: From Law to Finance14:59 Colombia's AI Implementation Bill Insights16:56 AI-Driven Infrastructure Expansion21:21 Regulation-Driven Market Shifts24:22 European Employment Strategy Explained28:16 Power Partnerships in Industry29:36 Energy Strategy Development in Queretaro34:34 Data Center Benefits and Opportunities37:19 Optimizing Europe's Data Center Strategy

And we are now in the AI era. And what I would say is the strategies that grew the enterprise era and the cloud era cannot be applied to the AI. So something has to change. Welcome to another edition of Not Your Father's Data Center. We are here in lovely Honolulu, Hawaii at PTC 2025.

I am super fortunate to be joined by three friends of mine, guys that I've met in the business and became friends, which is just awesome. We'll start on the far end with what I've already announced is the smartest guy here. When Martine found out that he and I were going to be the same team, he quit pretty quickly. So clearly knows what he's doing. Martin is the founder and CEO of LATAM Entry and resides in the great state of Nevada. Martin, give us a minute on LATAM Entry. Yeah, absolutely. LATAM Entry is a company who's focusing on servicing the data center ecosystem in Latin America. As clients, we're consulting the subsea cable companies coming into

Latin America on their edge strategy. Land developers who want to enter the sector along with publicly traded REITs in Mexico who want to join the sector. Companies such as the fiber providers within countries that want to provide their roots for the data for the hyperskills who are coming into country, understanding their edge strategy. So really a holistic view into the ecosystem and assessing where they have gaps to develop and implement their strategy. And really the goal is to make sure that our industry grows fast in Latin America and just doing my part to assist. Awesome. Martin, we'll get into LATAM in much more detail. Next to Martin is David Liggett, another founder and CEO. You'll recognize I'm

the only non-founder and CEO out here because I'm not as smart as these guys. David, as I think most of us know, the number one data center podcast in the world and their host, David Liggett, out of the great state of Texas. David, tell us a little bit about how you got Data Center Hawk rolling and what you're doing these days. Yeah, you bet. Thanks, Raymond. It's great to be here with you guys. I'm David Liggett with Data Center Hawk. We're a global market intelligence platform

for the data center industry, for data center operators, investors, users, vendors, and consultants. And so we go out, figure out what's going on in the space, analyze it, put it on our platform so people can make better decisions. So I've been doing it now for 10 years. The Data Center platform is 10 years old,

which is a little hard to believe, but I now have the wrinkles and gray hair through it. And we're loving being in the space. 10 years. 10 years, yeah. Man, that sneaks by you. Yeah, it does.

I don't see any gray hair. They're coming. Yeah, but how do you do it? You know, I'm 10 years as well. You know, look at me. I'm bull and grey. He's the soap dude. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

So David's going to talk about North America for us. And then my good friend, Bero, CEO and founder of KevLinks. I do not say his last name because I don't speak Dutch and I always butcher it. Bero, tell us about Europe and tell us a little bit about you and Kevlinx. Yeah, well two things for the sake of saying it, it's Luytjes, it's very Dutch. I'm trying to learn, but it's an education. I'll fly KLM more often. Yeah, yeah, 100%, 100%. And I stopped being a CEO because I found the perfect candidate for that. That's Erik Boonstra, he is an institutional candidate and I'm focusing on the strategy of the company. So I founded Kevlinx 10 years now ago. Ik ben een industriële kandidat en ik focus op de strategie van de bedrijf. Ik heb Kavlinks 10 jaar geleden gevonden.

Ik ben een bankman, dus sorry, blijk me niet. Ik heb voor Lima Brothers gewerkt. Sorry, blijk me niet. We hebben van het begin geconcentreerd op ondergebruikte regio's, zoals we ze noemden. De strategie kwam in 2014 op. Dus ook 10 jaar geleden. We hebben het geconfronteerd met het parken van auto's. Als je in de centra van de stad bent, kun je je auto niet parkeren, So yeah, also 10 years. And we compared it to car parking. You know, if you're in the city centers at some point, you can't park your car anywhere because it's the most expensive.

And you have to go to other areas where there's space available or let's say reasonable rates. So that's what we did with our strategy of the company. So first project now being live in two months from now in Brussels. And have sites in different underserved regions in Europe. I'm happy to talk about it during this podcast. Martijn, tell us a little bit about your background, where you're from, where you went to school, and how you got the Cajones to start your own business. I've been servicing the Latin America region for over 10 years.

The last six feet on the ground on the region. I'm from Mexico. I got all my bad habits in the U.S. where I was raised. However, I am a veteran of the U.S. Navy and also a veteran of a foreign war. That was the last war of the five fought in 1900s. And I was grateful to be part of that and be here. Thank you for serving, Martin. And thank you for being in the Marines. You know, they say that as you get older,

you have three, four different careers, you know, and I've been fortunate enough that every career that I've touched and skillset that I've learned, I'm applying today. As far as new markets, speaking with the CEOs of fiber infrastructure, subsea cables, investors within the region, and leveraging all my expertise in the U.S., knowing the who's who in the Americas, and then becoming the conduits or the dot connector

between Latin America and the U.S. And so I reside in the U.S. because I want to maintain my presence here and be close to the knowledge base. And then so when I'm here, I'm an ambassador for Latin America. And when I'm in Latin America, I'm an ambassador for the U.S. And I like to take advantage and leverage the best things of both regions and try to make something good for everyone. Martin, thanks for giving us a little bit of your background. What year did you start LATAM Entry? What year was that? May of last year, 23, two months after leaving Ascenti, I had to go walk barefoot in the forest of

Tahoe and find myself and see what I was going to do. LATAM Entry was available, so I thought we'd go with that. It's been nothing but fun. Again, thank you for serving. David, tell us a little bit about your background and how did you decide to start a data center information software platform not the thing you go study in schools you know tell us how that happens it's true uh yeah so

you shared but i'm from texas uh i went to school at baylor university in waco texas so that's right i stick them bears uh out of college. I spent some time working at a sports camp and then started in the real estate business in data centers in 2007. So just had the opportunity to join a team that was focused on the brokerage side of the business. I did that for eight years and basically worked with end users that were sourcing that needed data center space. So we'd go find that for them. So we did, you know, one cabinet deals, one megawatt deals, 10 megawatt deals, and then site selection. So there was a wide spectrum. Cabinet deals. We all remember those.

Yeah, I know. It's a hard thing to understand, but they did exist. Martin's talking about 11 gigawatts in South America, and we're talking about cabinets. Practice! You're talking about practice? You're paying too much. That's right. That's right. That's a piece of 0.5K. Yeah're being too humble. That's right. Density 0.5K. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's not fair. So we did that for eight years, had a great experience. But the problem that we found was that we never had great data to go do these projects. And everybody in our space knows this, but it's super capital intensive. And so what I found was that we were doing highly capital intensive projects with typically like less data than other projects that were out there so really felt the need that the the opportunity was out there so uh in 2014 i i did my walk through the forest and uh decided to start out at center hawk and just have had a great experience ever ever said to me the three things we try to focus on as our office basically

having deal back data we want to track things that make the deals go. There's so much information in our space, but when you boil it down, there's several things that matter to make deals go. That's what we want to do. We want to do it with experienced team members. So we have people that have been in the space a long time that are looking at the data, analyzing the data, people that have done deals before.

And that's really important when you're an investor trying to figure out where to go or what to do, having data that other people have been in the space looking at. And then we want our updates to be as quick as possible. So we, on a quarterly basis, are talking about, hey, how big is the market? How much absorption has been done? What's pricing look like? And we try to do that quickly just to keep up with the market because, as we all know, the market is changing so fast.

And so I've just had such a great time doing data center hogs and I would just say too and I think people that are watching this that are in our industry right now this is such a special time to be we we what's happening is I don't I don't even think we can really get our arms around and I don't just mean the size but I mean the significance you know of what's happening in our space right now and the projects that are happening, not just in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, APAC. I mean, it's a really special time to be in this space. And so I love doing it. It's been a great time. Awesome to hear your background. Thank you for that. You mentioned a little bit how capital intensive it is. It's why we invited the banker to come along, the former banker. And that's why they're one of us on either side of it. If he says

anything, you know, we're guys, we're a few stories Bero, if he gets out of line, we'll do what everybody wants to do with their bankers. We'll shove him over. Bero, let us know a little bit about your background, where you grew up, why I can't pronounce your last name, and how you started KevLinks. Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure, absolutely. First of all, thanks for having me. I started in my years in Amsterdam, born and raised over there. Amsterdam is, if you look at Europe, quite international, or at least we think we are,

aside of our names, because that's quite complicated, but that's something else. So I started, I did a degree of engineering, but before that I tried to do law. My mom hated my guts because I was a terrible, terrible child. So she put me into the navy, did it for two years, served my country as well. And my drilling sergeant was the best I ever had. He was like my parent, my father. And he gave me the obligation to, what's your goal? What's your end game in your life?

So then I, of course, definitely decided I'm not going to do fucking law anymore. I'm going to do something else. So I worked for Easy Harris for a couple of years as a principal on the real estate side. And then I was asked by Lehman Brothers. Yeah, I know. We're not laughing at you. No, no, no, no, no. I'm more, let's say, afraid still of the people being furious.

But that's something else. But luckily, they tend to forget. And we had a European real estate fund of approximately 10 billion euros. So quite an okay fund. In the end, there was a COO for that fund. And in our portfolio, we had mainly offices, some housing, residential, and a bunch of small logistics.

And why I'm touching on this is that we had a couple of assets in Amsterdam, and one of them was the dealing room of ING Bank. And at that time we knew of course what trading was, but they moved out and they had two other buildings. And I said, yeah, this is a data center. So we're all like in the other right. What the fuck is a data center? And a computing center. And then parties came to us, you know, we want to rent it. And we're like, are you sure? IKEA is renting one of those spaces. Are you you want to do it so let's let's let's you do that that's fine so they signed up for it uh and in the end that company was called it was bought by equinix in 2007 and equinix came to us and asked you know can you do an investment because we're going to upgrade the

data center i said sure you know what do you need 65 million now we're talking about billions but at that time 2007 that was a lot of money i said sure but explain to me like a four-year-old what are you going to do so um yeah yeah seven old yeah i know so they explained me was like yeah okay i i gave a call i said it's fine do that it's all good and uh but i wanted to know more about the data center space at that time i said what are you doing but because for us it's just real estate now we have cabinets we have racks i said what is a rack and right now it's just it's a server of a customer i said okay that's that seems interesting so i learned a lot from a guy called uh kevin norcott he was the coo

and mayor at that time at equinix and uh years later he reached out to me he said you know i want to stop at equinix i want to create it our own company. I said, yeah, sure, that's fine, let's talk about it. Let's talk about financing. And then we started to look for other locations and he came up actually with the idea, focus on unserved regions. So Kevin Norcott is the guy who came up with this initial idea.

I said, yeah, sure, make that happen. And he passed away in March, 2015. And I promised two things. One, I'll take care of your wife. And secondly, I'm going to execute this mission and make it a great success. But we're now building a first big data center campus in Brussels and we have sites in Spain,

in Italy, in Austria. So we're quite successful. We're in a fortunate position that we have Macquarie as our investor, good investor to work with. And yeah, we have a great team. We have a good leader now with a lot of experience from the data center industry. So I'm very, very, very excited about what we're doing.

Yeah. So Bero, thank you for telling the story about how you gave KevLinks the name. I was gonna ask you if you didn't do it. So thank you for doing it, one. Two, thank you for serving your country. And we really appreciate hearing your background. So guys, we're gonna get into all kinds of issues

in the data center business, but start thinking now. We're gonna ask you to predict the gigawatts of data center deals signed in your respective region in 2025. And it does make me cringe a little that we now say gigawatts. But I think that's appropriate. I will tell a funny story. I was meeting with one of the hyperscalers, and we were talking about the incredible growth. And I said, you know, we doubled last year from 3.5 gigawatts to 7.5 gigawatts. We can't double.

The numbers are too big, right? A lot of big numbers. We can't double every year. And he laughed, and he said, oh, Raymond, we'll do 7.5 ourselves next year. So it's a crazy time to be in our business. There are lots of downstream problems that get caused by that. But Martin, talk about the growth in Latin America. What do you think are the big trends coming down there? And what are some of the big hurdles we got to worry about as we try to enter into that market down there? Yeah, certainly. Well, you know,

this is like Latin America, first and foremost, it's a very big region comprised of like 30 different countries. The top six countries region comprised of like 30 different countries. The top six countries comprised of like 93% of the population. So from a U.S. standpoint, there's 340 million. Brazil, 220. Mexico, 120. Just Mexico and Brazil alone make up the U.S. population, right? And then the rest, you've got Colombia, Argentina, and Chile.

So we'll kind of focus on that. But the primary countries to really look at is Brazil. You know, Marco's CEO for Scala was just at an AI summit. There's a bill right now that's about to be passed by the other part of the house. It's pretty much done. Prior to that bill, it was projected that Brazil would have up to 300, 3 megawatts by 2030. Right now they have 800 megawatts. The projection is that...

So 3 gigawatts, right? 3 gigawatts to 2030. I just want to make sure. He said gigawatts. Yeah, I just want to make sure. Thank you. And then I was thinking in Spanish, so I got a little confused. But according to Marcos, the passing of this bill is really for the use and implementation of AI throughout the country. He projects that that's going to be 11 gigawatts by 2030.

So really three times just by the government putting emphasis on the law. Colombia is a sleeping giant. You know, all the major players have purchased. They have land banks. There was a big push to enter Colombia. And then really, I think that people became a little bit dissatisfied with the investors on the government, current government. There's about a year and a half left of that government. A lot of infrastructure investments being done in Colombia. Subsea cables are coming into Colombia. It's now become the third largest subsea cable company

in the country and in the Americas. Mexico is poised, right? Mexico came to the challenge that all the markets around the world have, and that's energy. Everyone goes into the market and the local region is caught flat-footed on their energy strategy, right?

So now there's momentum on that. Just this week alone amazon opened up their cloud region they announced it a year ago 1.3 billion uh 3 billion investments for the next 15 years it's only like 400 300 300k you know a year but still right and so uh the new president of mexico was present in that announcement. She's very, very much green energy. Everyone in the energy sector is very optimistic that the president is going to up that. Now that she has focus on the data center industry, we're very hopeful there.

Martin, great job. Tell us about Latin America. David, give us your insights in North America. What do you think the North American market is going to look like? You know, we can talk about 25. We can talk about big picture. But you alluded to it in your intro that there's big things happening. Talk a little about North America. Yeah. I mean, when I think about our space, you know, we talk about cabinet. It's like we've gone from cabinet campuses, millions to billions, CPUs, GPUs, and megawatts to gigawatts.

I mean, that is a transformation that's happening in our space. And I think we're seeing that right now play out in the largest way in the United States of America. For a number of reasons, I'm not sure that will always be the case. But right now, that is where these very large projects are going. You know, when I sit back and think about why is it happening, it's really the bet that these companies have made on AI and what they believe it will be three years from now, five years from now, and 10 years from now. And you mentioned the absorption numbers, and I think you're right on like four gigawatts in 2023, seven gigawatts, six and a half, seven gigawatts in 2024. What that number gets to, to be honest, in 2025, I think will certainly be higher.

The question mark will be, you know, how much pre-leasing can be done and how comfortable customers are signing a lease with whatever that timeline is to get the power. You know, and the longer that timeline stretches, the less signings there are because, you know, they want to be able to get that power sp split if possible. So we're very bullish. You know, the markets that are seeing the growth in the U.S. are your typical ones, Virginia, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix. Atlanta is seeing a lot of growth. And then we're also seeing, like, continual growth to tertiary markets.

And that's really the question mark is, like, how secondary will the secondary markets become? And we probably see that in other regions, too. So we're past tier two, right? Are we to tier four? I mean, that's one of the things I wanted to hear from you, right? We all know tier ones, you just rattled them off. We all know tier twos.

How far are we going? We're certainly in the tier three category. And there's good reasons for it. I mean, obviously power availability and a path to not just power, but a lot of power is certainly a key driver to take these development projects to other regions. You know, the question mark a lot of times with these movements to these other territories is you solve the power challenge, but do you create other challenges when, some of these areas that don't have contractors and workforce, you know, how do you build three gigawatts in a city historically that has never seen data center development? And so it's certainly solvable. It's just a different path than, you know, having three canvases in Northern Virginia and rotating your contractor, you know, building by building. Give me your top two, wow, I didn't think there'd be a gigawatt data center

there market. You know, Mississippi. Okay, we'll give you that one. That's certainly one. You know, there's been some, there's just been, I think, like a $10 billion investment in Louisiana. That's another state that's seen growth. And I think the U.S. real estate market for 15, as long as I've been in it, has always operated in a very similar manner from a geography perspective. And three, four years ago, it totally shifted. There's still massive investments taking place in those markets, but there's also significant billions and billions and billions of dollars going to places we've never seen it go before. And so I still think that the major data center markets will continue to see a lot of growth. There's a lot of reasons why. But if you want to solve AI, if you want to be a player in AI

5, 10, 15 years from now, you've got to go other places because that type of power doesn't exist on the timeline needed to solve the end user needs. So anyway, very bullish about North America. We think we'll see more growth next year than we've ever seen before. And it'll just be fun to watch. Fun to watch for sure. All right, Beryl, so we heard about LATAM. We've heard about North America. Give us your take on where the growth is going to happen from my lens or my chair.

David alluded to it. There's a lot going on in North America. We don't see the scale happening yet in Europe, but we'd love to hear, A, when you think that scale's coming and what is tier two and tier three in Europe and is that happening? Yeah, good point. Also a question for you, but it's later maybe.

What we're dealing with in Europe is that we have 27 countries and the UK, of course, clearly. The UK recently said, let's go for data centers, be open again. Because why? You know, AI, workforce, all that stuff. So they're OK, but not in London. I think what we have to accept the fact is that Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and even Dublin, they're anti-data centers. It's gone. Regulation, all the stuff you have to deal with. So what you see is a shift in markets

where people do the large deployments. And you see two clusters, two kinds of clusters, the northern cluster and the southern European cluster. And so you see big developments in Italy, in Spain, and some interesting developments as well in Greece now. For instance, Greece, the power, the grid owner,

is still very welcome to, basically to welcome other parties and coming in and use that grid owner. In Griekenland is de griekenbeheerder nog wel welkom om in de grieken te komen en de griekenbeheerder te gebruiken. In Spanje is dat net als in Madrid, maar nu moet je 40k per megawatt betalen om de kracht zelf te beperken. We hebben een site in Barcelona, ik zal je een paar uitdagingen geven. I'll give you a few challenges that we're having over there. If you want to have a conversation with the grid owner, in this case, with operators and DESA, you say, listen, can we talk about availability on substation level first through the application? And you're like, but you know, I need to have some sort of degree of comfort

that I actually can do something with that. Yeah, we can't, you know, do the application and you'll see the outcome. Whereas what happened in third areas and fourth regions, the government of Zaragoza said, "'Guys, you want to self-perform? "'Come over 300, 400 megawatts. "'We want you to come over.'"

So this is also, I think we can link it to things like, yeah, the data centers will go where the subsea cables land. Latency is less important. Access to power, speed to power, it's so instrumental in Europe. And a couple of countries in Europe are still welcome. We want to welcome you.

Whereas in Amsterdam, for instance, we have a ban on data centers. We have a ban on the critical economic factor, the third economic factor of our nation. It's bizarre. Therefore, I think if you look at the Americas right now, it's growing fast. APEC, bizarre. E, I think if you look at the Americas right now, it's growing fast. APEC, bizarre. AMEA, Europe, it's very challenging. Yeah, and I actually, I was gonna say, on the regulation side in the US,

that's something that I'm glad you mentioned that. It'll be really interesting to watch because, to your point, community will take the growth, take the growth, take the growth, and then there's a moment where they go, it's too much. Yeah, yeah, true. And now the project size is, you can do one project that's too much. And so I think the tone, and you probably have a really good opinion on this too,

is like the tone in the U.S. in some places is shifting where people aren't as interested in data centers, not just from a power perspective, but from a community perspective. So there's a lot of education on probably all of our parts in the industry, to help people understand why these investments make sense. But there are some places I think that you'll see in the next five to three to five years, certainly in the US that will really put pause on data center.

Yeah, and we also have this whole convincing thing in Europe where you have to convince not only let's say the prime Minister but also the local municipalities where you have to still explain what a data center does okay that's fine you know 80% of people doesn't know what we are doing and that's fantastic because we can make a fortune but what we see is that if you explain to them this is a data center we store racks customers are coming in they're like okay what's your employment rate and you say well you, you have direct employment,

we have the contractors, the Brussels project, and our 200 people working on the site. Is what they say to you, no, but that's variable. You know, that doesn't count because it's for a year and then they're gone. We have an office of 5,000 square meters. We lease it to third parties, so in the end, the customers are in that office,

so in the end, you create indirect, direct employment of over hundreds of jobs. So it's a lot of repeating explanation what you got to do in Europe to basically be successful. And again, if you look at Italy, for instance, a country, Terna, the high voltage grid owner,

is very, very proactive in creating new substations, basically make sure that you get your power. Compass is there as well. Very good choice. Whereas sure that you get your power, Compass is there as well, very good choice. Whereas as I said, you know, Madrid is now like, yeah, we don't have power, you know, sort it out yourself, good luck. And you see that therefore that Madrid, I think, is lacking in take-up, whereas Zaragoza, as I said, you know, is booming now. So it's a very interesting time. Martin, will you tell us a little bit about how this power question that both David and

Bero have raised is getting handled in LATAM? There's generation, there's transmission, there's distribution, all challenges in the two big economies. I'd love to hear how it's going down in LATAM. Maybe we should focus on the positive things of the energy side, right? And kind of like in Europe, every country has different governments and it's a different challenge. And certainly, you know, in Brazil, it's really the leader of green energy across the Americas with almost 97%, you know, which is really a big factor for AI growth, especially with this new bill. Some of the challenges, just the tariff,

so sending equipment down there if you're coming in from the US and trying to sell a ship. But if you're a Brazilian company, your goal land on the tariff piece. Energy side in Mexico, it's not private, it's a public. Right, it's owned by the federal government, right? And it's just not one good, there's many different grids that make up the network, right? And so in Mexico, I think everyone started concentrating

in Querétetaro which is right outside of mexico's uh three hours mexico city earthquake area and so everyone jumped in there you know uh next virginia of the americas but there are now regions it's saturated and so now everyone's looking for new states new regions within Mexico, even though it's a federal grid. Every state has their own power generation and transmission. Just in September alone, the data center Dynamics can't cool. And they announced a 250 megawatt project for AI. And so that's a positive thing.

You've got the government itself. They are promoting a couple of gigawatt solar plants in northern Mexico and Sonora, which according to stats, has got the highest solar index in the Americas. So we think there's a big, big, big plus coming from that. The challenge now is the government opening up their aperture. I wouldn't say laws, but give the data center a break from a standpoint of being able to generate their own energy. It was so good. Once again, it was so great to see the new president be part of the Microsoft announcements because she was in get at it at the heart of the things. And we believe, you know, typically the way it works in Mexico, it's a six, well, typically, it's a six-year one term, right?

And so the first two years of the president is really to kind of carry the agenda of the previous presidency, if it's the same party. In this case, it is. And then after that, they pay respect to the previous president and they go off and do their agenda and she's very, we're very optimistic that she's going to open up the flood gates on self-generations for consumption.

All right guys, so power as an industry, we're an awfully big customer of the power and all of us have alluded to at some point, hey, it's one of the constraining factors, How do we generate enough? How do we serve enough? I think that as our industry continues to consume so much power, that we've got to be viewed as a partner to the power providers and a partner to the networks. I think it's, you know, we've got to figure out how do we work together and serve with instead of serve serve me and we'd love to hear in your regions how you guys think about how we partner with the with the power providers how we partner with transmission how we partner with distribution

and maybe even a brief minute about um renewables so martin tell us a little bit about the way to think about consuming power in latin yeah well um once again every every country is different but i'll give you an example in mexico when we first came in as a data center industry, at the end of the day, there's like probably 10 different companies right now that are there. We were all independently going to the country or to the region for power. We all realized that we had issues or difficulty when communicating our needs. We ended up going to the government saying we're just we're one voice or one we're servicing three clients at the end of the day and what's the country's strategy? This is what we don't have one yet but we're working on it and it's great why

don't we go ahead and where'd you go ahead and talk to everyone and find out what the problems and do a strategy or I'll bring everyone to the table and we'll talk about the strategy. And so now there's a secretary of energy for the state of Querétaro, the first one in the country. So it's been really, really helpful in helping develop and implement the strategy as to how we're going to grow the energy sector within the region. And then, you know, the public incentive for data center is just not for us, it's really for, it's for society.

Right? The governments have two options. They either develop their own data centers for to provide a digital infrastructure for the countries, or they allow our industry to come in and do that. Now, a data center, it may consume power, but every day we're benefiting from that. AI, autonomous, medical, your bank, right?

It's all about infrastructure. So Martin, my kids ask this question. I tell them, look, everything that's on your phone is in a data center. Everything you're doing on your phone happens in a data center. It's, I think, an easy way to explain. And yeah, I mean, and you know,

when you take a plane i mean it's it's required for traveling and transport of goods you can't have any goods without transportation but you don't see it like so integrated within your life and so uh i i like to think of it as a yes we're consuming power but we're distributing benefits to society as a whole not just a i'm going to take a plane once a year, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. Right? And so I think that's really where our benefit is as an industry.

And I'll be glad to educate markets on bringing in this infrastructure and educating them on what's the best way to partner up on energy because the ultimate ultimate goal for our data center industry is to serve so martin we use the phrase in north america right that there's a technology gap access to technology i think this speaks right to it right you have to have the digital infrastructure for there to be internet everywhere and all the applications so so david tell talk to us a little bit. How do you guys, I know you're not in the service provider business, but you're near us and near all of our customers. So how do you think about our store, our industry's story around power?

Yeah, when I got into the data service in 2007, and I would call that the enterprise era. This is banks, insurance companies, technology companies maturing their infrastructure footprint, figuring it out. In about 2014, 15, we entered the cloud era. And that was, you started seeing availability zones, cloud growth, and we are now in the AI era. And what I would say is the strategies that grew the enterprise era and the cloud era cannot be applied to the AI. So something has to change. And that's really a global, maybe happens for all of us. But what I think has to change in the U.S. is it's not

a deal by deal thing anymore. It's not what site can give me 36 megawatts. Great. Let's just go get it and go. You've got to take a more like a top down approach. You've got to think about relationship with the government. You've got to think about relationship with the community. You've got to think about relationship with the power provider. And it's more of a holistic, you know, decision-making process that will allow the portfolio growth needed to match the demand. And that's what's going to have to change. And I think it is changing. I think we're starting to see that.

People are thinking much more larger. And with those large decisions, there's just a lot more to evaluate. So I think that that will be the shift in the US to make this happen. But you know, the US market's about 38 gigawatts of power. When you think about leasing and companies that own and operate their data centers,

we're tracking like over 100 gigawatts of planned projects. So that growth is only gonna be allowed if we have the supply to meet it. And that's gonna be the big question mark. And also too, like how companies, how AI is monetized. You know, like do the business models really support the growth expectations that we see? So I think those are the things that will have to shift.

Yeah. All right, Beryl, 27 countries. You guys have a little bit more of a challenge over there to get everybody to row the same direction. Tell me how the data center industry partnering with those different countries and all the different governing bodies over there to get enough power to lay

the digital infrastructure foundation. Yeah, I can say it's challenging. When I started the company in 2014, or the idea basically, I'm from a special background, so I have this social holistic view on when running a company, starting a company, it's not only about EBITDA. Investors will not like it, but you have to do something back for the society because you're creating something, so you have to share and make clear to them, you know, what are you doing? What does this mean for society? So I said, you know, a couple of things. I went talking to the Brussels

local municipality. Yes, we're going to do a data center. Of course, the question, what is a data center? I said, we're going to create employment. We're going to align with schools. We're going to educate them what this is. We're going to create, let's say, blue collar jobs for people, let's say, that don't have the highest chance of succeeding in working life. And also we're going to create let's say blue-collar jobs for people let's say that don't have the highest chance of succeeding in working life and also we're going to align with the parties in our area to see how we can source and find the solutions for uh for the excess heat that we produce so they asked me you know what does that mean i said well district heating you know district reading reading is something very european that you can do in Eastern Europe, in Mid-Europe, North-Lest, because densities of cities. But it's a good thing.

And at least then you can find a solution on reusing that heat and to certainly take the power. I do believe, however, that Europe is a very, very dense area. And getting hundreds and hundreds of megawatts somewhere at some point is just difficult, and therefore there will be a shift. and getting hundreds and hundreds of megawatts somewhere at some point is just difficult. And therefore, there will be a shift and the capacity will travel to where the power is. And that's the Northern Cluster and the Southern European Cluster for now.

And as I said, you know, it will have an impact on the tier one markets, as we call them, flap D, and will move more capacity to those areas. And this goes, I hear, what I now observed in this last 10 years, when I started the company, what I've learned and had is in 2014, I heard people talk about hyperscale, hyperscale, cloud, cloud, cloud, and I was like, but they're still enterprise, right?

Sure. And now it's AI, and don't get me wrong, I think it's serious, but we have to think of this mixture holistic solution on finding that for the parts, your customers, as you want to serve. And this also will have an implication on the power. And what I think what will happen ultimately in Europe

is just find your land close to the grid. Do it like that. Awesome. Well, guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me at PTC. Not a bad place to have to do a conference every year. At Compass we like to say data centers done differently so give me one snippet on what's different, what's unique when folks want to go to LATAM and they want to talk to somebody. Martin, something unique about LATAM entry. Well first of all if you're

thinking about going to Latin America, if you want to get a big picture perspective, listen to a data center hawk Center Hawk on Portland, Mesa. It's phenomenal. Cross-promotion, it's good. It's good. No, no, no. You got to get front of words, too. Yeah, absolutely. And so the things that I do that Latin does differently is that when you talk to me about a region, I am looking at it from a which subsea cables are coming in, what fiber infrastructure is there, what's the strategy of new strategy or new fiber routes. And so as you speak to me about data centers, if you're a subsea guy, I'm thinking edge strategy, kind of like a Myrtle Beach, you know, what's going on in Europe, why you think why are you doing it just a half a megawatt

edge, you got to think of 5, 10, convincing them on that. And then I'm already thinking of fiber routes. Or if we're looking at investors that want to go that are in commercial real estate or residential, they want to enter our space, educating them on what the data center is and who's who, what's what. And so whatever industry part of the infrastructure

you're coming in for the ecosystem, I'm able to give you what the gaps are, but connect you to the people that are going to help you execute. So let's meet the guys that are in the U.S. that are doing the same thing. Go get ideas from them. Maybe the guy from the U.S. wants to partner up with you, right? Right. And so really our our key service is bringing in the resources that you need to help fill the gaps that you have for you to complete your strategy. But most importantly, help you implement. If you want to enter South America doing it differently with LATAM entry. All right, David. Data Center Hawk, digital infrastructure, information superhighway, the man behind the screen. You know, tell us what's done differently there at data center hawk. Yeah, really three things.

I mean, the deal back data, our experience team, and then just the fast updates that we make. I mean, that's really what we feel like makes our company different. And we really work hard every single day to make those things happen. So all the data on our platform looked at by people in the industry that have been doing it for a long time. And that has helped people make better decisions.

Awesome. All right, Beryl, KevLynx done differently. Data centers in Amsterdam, give us a snippet on what's different about KevLinks. Yeah well we focus we don't focus on the tier one markets so we from the very beginning we said focus on on the underserved regions that's also in line with our investor it's one of the reasons why they stepped in and of course with all respect it's the biggest infrastructure fund in the world so it's

they're doing quite some things well. What I as I said earlier, is I love to educate people about the business because why I learned it also in my doing banking life and if you only can make sure that one percent of the people population in the country itself especially the underserved markets that they are aware of what you're doing then you're not their enemy anymore. You're like, no, we're serving you. We want to find sustainable solutions. We use a part of your power, but there's plenty left. Let's do this together. And that's my view for the coming years.

It's basically to educate people, to help them, let's say, understand what we're doing. I don't care how many schools come over. You know, like facilities where the old people are. Come in, I'll show you what a bloody rack is. is you know this is a rack this is what helps you doing going on the simple internet or when you want to text on that whatsapp with your with your needs or something like that that's what i love to do so barry you said where the old people are you you weren't referring to me right i just want to make sure i'm not talking about yourself okay it's okay

good good good good good all right just want to make sure well guys ptc is an awesome time to get together um i've been in the business 10 years i would just tell each one of you barrow thank you Good, good, good. All right, just wanna make sure. Well guys, PTC is an awesome time to get together. I've been in the business 10 years. I would just tell each one of you, Barrow, thank you for hanging out with us. David, thank you for coming. Martine, thank you for coming. Not only do I get to be friends with really amazing guys

that are super smart and doing really cool things for our planet, but guys that are just great fellows to be around, so I'm so grateful that you guys joined us and we look forward to spending some time here trying to help the world build out digital infrastructure. Thank you guys.