CHALLENGES

Adapting to giga-scale

As data centre projects scale up, success increasingly depends on securing power, capacity and supply-chain partnerships to accelerate delivery

The data centre industry has always evolved in response to demand and for many developers and operators, traditional delivery models are no longer equipped to support hyperscale and emerging gigawatt-scale programmes.

Approaches that once relied on project-by-project procurement, competitive tendering and transactional supplier relationships are increasingly being replaced by models designed to prioritise speed, certainty, flexibility and sustained capacity.

Adoption of these models reinforce how much decision making on data centre projects has moved beyond price-based procurement. Speed to market is the core priority and can be seen in our survey data.

Key shifts in data centre procurement and delivery

Direct collaboration with utilities

Earlier involvement in power planning

Long-term supplier partnerships

Pre-qualified supply chain benchmarking

The rise of alternative delivery models

As major data centre projects around the world continue to grow in scale and difficulty, contractor capacity and appetite for risk is changing. As risk becomes more complex and less predictable, adoption of collaborative approaches such as two-stage design and build and construction management is increasing. This is being driven by:

Increasing technical complexity
The need for earlier contractor involvement to manage risk
Greater emphasis on flexibility and responsiveness in delivery

More integrated models support:

Earlier identification and allocation of risk
Improved collaboration across stakeholders
Greater flexibility to respond to changing conditions

Power and infrastructure constraints

As shown by the number of AI-capable data centre projects exploring on-site – ‘behind-the-meter’ - power generation, access to power remains the defining challenge facing the global data centre development sector. 56 percent of our survey respondents identified it as a major obstacle to successful delivery with 81 percent of all respondents citing utility availability as one of their two most significant power-related constraints.

In several established markets, developers face growing competition for access to electricity networks already under pressure from housing growth, industrial electrification and wider decarbonisation programmes.

The traditional power model – connecting to energy grids with a diesel backup – remains the dominant method of securing electricity, used by 76 percent of respondents to our survey. Even for AI-ready data centres, more respondents (40 percent) reported using traditional connections than any other power strategy.

However, continued lengthening of connection queues and slow progress expanding transmission and distribution infrastructure is increasingly prompting organisations to consider alternative solutions to meet rapid demand.

In our survey, over half of participants (53 percent) reported that utility connections take between one and two years, with a further 32 percent reporting timeframes of over two years. This data supports the 42 percent of respondents who shared that they were already actively using or exploring alternative power sources. This is a significant increase from our 2025 survey, when just 14 percent reported including alternative solutions in their power strategies.

It is clear that power security is a strategic priority and organisations who can find the quickest means to gain it take a critical advantage in the race to get data centres operational.

Keeping pace with the cooling transition

AI workloads are accelerating the shift towards higher-density, liquid-cooled environments. 52 percent of those surveyed expect liquid cooling to feature in more than half of the data centres they work on over the next 12 months, with cooling distribution units and hybrid air/liquid systems expected to be the most widely used solutions.

This transition brings an upfront cost and delivery challenge as advanced systems require specialist design and installation. There are clear risks emerging as the supply chain has not yet caught up with the scale of demand. 64 percent of respondents describe their local supply chain as moderately, highly or severely constrained.

However, the operational case can be compelling: cooling at rack or chip level can handle much greater heat loads, while closed-loop and hybrid systems can reduce energy and water demand. Those efficiencies may also strengthen the case for development, helping operators respond to scrutiny over resource consumption and demonstrate to governments and communities that growth can be delivered more responsibly.

Figure 9:

How would you describe your local supply chain’s ability to support the increasing adoption of these cooling technologies over the next 12 months?

Energy companies become development partners

Shifting power strategies are reshaping the relationship between the data centre industry and the energy sector.

Whereas historically, energy companies acted primarily as suppliers, they are now becoming active participants in the development ecosystem as the growing importance of power availability drives closer collaboration between developers, utilities, infrastructure investors and energy providers.

This evolution reflects the reality that many of the sector's greatest challenges can no longer be solved by individual organisations working independently. As scale and demand get bigger, the infrastructure needed to support future digital growth increasingly requires coordinated planning across multiple sectors.

This does not eliminate competition, and as developers and utilities continue to compete for many of the same resources, we expect pressure on supply chains to persist. Cooperation must extend beyond the private sector into government.

New competitive dynamics

With intense competition for finite resources, power, labour, equipment and supply-chain capacity have become strategic priorities on the critical path to delivery.

This dynamic is particularly visible in areas such as transformers, switchgears, cooling systems and specialist construction expertise, where demand continues to outpace available capacity. In many cases, access to these resources is becoming more important than achieving marginal savings on project costs.

The emergence of new market participants is adding further complexity. Infrastructure funds and energy companies as well as sovereign-backed initiatives and AI-focused developers are entering the sector, bringing new capital, new priorities and new delivery models. While this investment supports the industry’s broader growth, it also intensifies competition for already constrained resources.