Welcome to Global Data Center Hub. Join investors, operators, and innovators reading to stay ahead of the latest trends in the data center sector in developed and emerging markets globally.
Edition No. 71
In this week’s issue:
First, Akamai’s warrant. Akamai signed an $11.6 billion, seven-year compute deal with Anthropic and gave it a path to ~5% of its stock. Why would a supplier hand equity to a customer?
Then, a wind-fed campus finds its tenant. Crusoe’s 1GW-plus Texas campus now has its hyperscale tenant, and the power comes straight from a wind farm.
Finally, Brazil doubles down. It took nine years to build what Google Cloud now plans to double in four, by 2030.
Let’s get started.
The $11.6 billion contract and the ~5% warrant
Akamai gave a customer equity because the price was small next to the prize. Chief executive Tom Leighton put the warrant’s value at a little over $150 million, against an $11.6 billion contract.
Akamai announced the seven-year agreement with Anthropic on 24 September. It supplies compute for the AI lab’s CPU workloads and could grow by up to $9 billion. Akamai shares rose as much as 20% in after-hours trading, according to Investing.com.
Akamai keeps the hardware and the operating risk. The customer gets compute and a growing claim on its supplier. A services contract now carries an ownership tie.
The harder question is timing, because the cash goes out long before it comes back. The structure behind the deal is in The Mechanism below.
THIS WEEK BY REGION
North America: power and local consent now carry a price
Amazon will put $1 billion over five years into US communities that host its data centers. The program is called Built Together. It funds free community college and workforce training, energy and water upgrades for schools and homes, and flexible local grants.
Amazon says communities will decide what is most useful. That’s the cost of keeping permission to build. Local consent has become a budget line, and Amazon is paying it up front.
Bain Capital is reportedly weighing a bid for Koch’s Edged, in a sale Bloomberg reported at over $15 billion. Edged runs seven US facilities. A privately held industrial group is testing what private equity will pay for a full operating platform. The price will set a marker for every mid-sized US operator that comes to market next.
In Texas and Oklahoma, AB Energy secured about 2GW of on-site power projects for five data centers. The units run on INNIO Jenbacher gas engines. AB Energy says it already holds the equipment for the full 2GW. That’s power moving next to the load.
Developers in those states are building their own generation to avoid waiting on the grid. AB Energy is already arranging more units, so engine supply is the next bottleneck.
Asia-Pacific: approvals arrive, and power sets the terms
In Sydney, New South Wales planners approved Microsoft’s AU$1.263 billion, 96MW data center at Huntingwood. The consent requires its operating demand to be matched at all times by additional, firmed renewable supply.
The power condition now sits inside the planning consent itself. In New South Wales, contracting firmed renewables is becoming a cost of getting approved.
In Canberra, territory planners approved CDC’s AU$203.5 million Beard 2 data center. It adds 84MW across 12 data halls, next to the existing 39MW Beard 1. Building beside a running site lets CDC reuse power and fiber it already has. Together, the two Beard buildings will pass 120MW.
Microsoft also plans to double its Taiwan data centers from two to four, its Taiwan general manager Sean Pien said. He named electricity and rack space as the shortage. No investment figure was given. Taiwan’s compute demand is outpacing local capacity, and power is what’s holding it back.
Europe: grid works set the schedule
Caverion signed a €15 million substation contract for Nebius’s 70MW second site at Mäntsälä, Finland, due in autumn 2027. It’s Caverion’s third agreement with Nebius in Finland. The substation, more than the building, sets the date that 70MW goes live.
The same contractor keeps winning the grid work, which makes delivery capacity a scarce asset in the Nordics.
In Norway, 3i-backed Lefdal Mine bought a 40-acre development site in Sunnfjord for NOK 74 million. It plans a NOK 9 billion build there. The land cost under 1% of the planned build, so the money at risk sits almost entirely in construction and power.
In Dublin, Google won approval on appeal for a 72,400 sqm extension at Grange Castle. South Dublin County Council had refused it in 2024, citing grid capacity. The approval requires evidence of engagement with power purchase agreements.
For Ireland, the grid is still the gate, and approvals now come with power conditions attached. The decision can still be subject to judicial review.
South America: cheap hydropower meets hyperscale demand
Google Cloud will double its computing capacity in Brazil by 2030, matching in four years what took nine to build. It has already added Nvidia Blackwell GPUs to its São Paulo region. Brazil remains the region’s hyperscale anchor, and the second doubling is coming more than twice as fast as the first.
Araico unveiled Iguazú AI City, a reported ~$12 billion, 280MW campus at Yguazú, Paraguay, with Founders Fund as anchor investor. The power contract with state utility ANDE, reportedly at $45 per MWh, isn’t signed yet. The whole plan rests on that contract. Paraguay is trying to sell its hydropower as compute.
THE MECHANISM
Capex now, revenue later, equity if it grows
Akamai built its name delivering web content from servers spread across thousands of locations. It has been turning that footprint into a cloud business, and this deal is its largest test.
The work is CPU compute, the general-purpose processing that runs around AI models. On Akamai’s investor call, finance chief Ed McGowan said CPUs generally earn more revenue per megawatt of power than GPUs.
The cash goes out first. Akamai plans ~$5.5 billion of capex: ~$1.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2026, ~$3.1 billion in 2027 and ~$0.7 billion in 2028. The first tranche pre-buys supply chain components, including memory. Revenue comes later.
McGowan guided ~$150 million to ~$300 million for 2027, starting in the second half. He expects a ~$1.7 billion annual run rate by the end of 2028.
Akamai will pay for it from its own balance sheet. McGowan cited $4.6 billion of cash and a $1 billion revolver, and said no new financing is needed. The power sits in leased colocation space, about 95MW to 105MW, mostly in the US. Akamai signs multi-year leases of 10MW to 30MW per site. It owns the servers and rents the buildings and the power.
Then there’s the warrant. Anthropic holds a seven-year warrant for non-voting convertible preferred stock, 7.7 million shares on an as-converted basis, at $111.33 a share. About 2% of Akamai vests with today’s commitment.
Roughly 1% more vests for each extra $3 billion the customer buys. That’s the cheapest part of the deal and the most telling. The remaining ~3% only vests if the contract grows. Akamai is paying for future demand with future equity.
Akamai will commit ~$4.8 billion of capex by the end of 2027, before most of the revenue arrives, to one customer. Only Anthropic can trigger the $9 billion expansion. I’d want one number from Akamai: contracted revenue through 2028, set against the ~$4.8 billion it spends before then. I’m watching its next quarterly report for the first capex draw and the colocation leases behind it.
NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS
Crusoe and Google: 1GW-plus Goodnight campus beside a Texas wind farm
Crusoe named Google as the tenant at its Goodnight campus in Armstrong County, near Amarillo. DCD reports more than 1GW across at least six buildings. What makes it notable is the power.
The campus connects directly to Serena’s Goodnight wind farms. One is running at 265.5MW, and a second of the same size is under construction. Surplus wind flows back to the grid.
Construction began in June 2025, so the news is the tenant. Naming the tenant turns a speculative build into a committed one, changing how the campus can be financed. Aterio Research puts total investment at ~$29 billion. Watch whether Crusoe raises debt against that commitment, and whether Goodnight 2 finishes on time.
Zone Frontier: 30-year ground lease with a purchase option on 4,077 Texas acres
Zone Frontier signed a ground lease on 4,077 acres in Potter County, Texas. It plans an initial 200MW campus, with room to pass 500MW. What makes this unique is the structure. Base rent starts only when construction starts in each area. The lease runs 30 years, with two 10-year extensions and an option to buy the data center site.
The land surrounds Southwestern Public Service’s 345kV Potter County substation, near two gas pipelines. At least 1,800 acres are set aside for solar and batteries, and the land includes a long-term water agreement.
The developer has locked up land, water and grid access without paying full rent up front. The first tenant signature decides whether this option becomes a campus. Until then, Zone Frontier says it will weigh co-investment equity and project finance.
If you are new to Global Data Center Hub, visit our Start Here page for more information about the newsletter.
If you found this newsletter useful, share it with a colleague.
Have a great week.
— Obinna
Suppliers now bid for demand with their own equity. Akamai spends $5.5B building for Anthropic and throws in a path to 5% of the company as a thank-you note. When the vendor pays you in stock to take the product, the customer was always the product.