The $1.99B Q3 That Redefined Who Owns the AI Economy
How Equinix and Digital Realty turned Q3 into the clearest signal yet that control of power-ready land and dense interconnection not CapEx totals now defines the AI infrastructure winners.
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The AI infrastructure debate is still stuck on one metric: how many billions hyperscalers are willing to spend.
That lens is now outdated.
The third-quarter prints from Equinix and Digital Realty show where the next leg of value will actually accrue: to the neutral platforms that can turn scarce power and dense interconnection into durable cash flow faster than anyone else.
Equinix delivered its strongest bookings quarter in history. Digital Realty pushed pricing to levels that would have looked unrealistic three years ago. Both raised guidance. Both expanded development pipelines. Both leaned harder into AI-ready campuses and interconnection ecosystems.
This is not traditional REIT execution. It is the early phase of an AI interconnection supercycle.
Equinix: the AI fabric
Equinix’s Q3 print shows a platform turning interconnection density into an AI-era earnings engine.
Revenue climbed to $2.316B (up 5%), EBITDA rose 10% to $1.148B, and net income increased 26%. But the real signal was the order book: $394M in gross bookings, the strongest in company history, and more than 7,100 new interconnections. At nearly 500,000 total cross-connects, every new link compounds network value.
Under its ‘Build Bolder’ plan, Equinix now controls over 3 GW of development rights across key metros, with 58 projects underway including 12 xScale campuses totaling more than 360 MW of contracted capacity and roughly $6B in lifetime value.
Equinix is also rearchitecting for AI. Its Distributed AI Infrastructure initiative brings GPU-optimized compute fabrics onto Equinix Fabric, positioning the company as a neutral, global mesh for inference and low-latency AI workloads.
Regional growth remained balanced, with strong enterprise and hyperscale demand across the Americas, EMEA stabilization, and Asia-Pacific expansion through Chennai and the TIM NextGen DC acquisition.
Equinix is building the connective layer for global AI. As interconnection becomes the scarce resource beneath cloud and compute, Equinix’s network-centric model is proving to be one of the strongest cash-flow engines in the sector.
→ Read the full Equinix Q3 2025 analysis: The $394 Million Quarter That Signals the AI Interconnection Supercycle
Digital Realty: Scarcity as a Business Model
If Equinix is building the AI fabric, Digital Realty is proving how valuable scarcity has become.
Q3 revenue reached $1.58 billion, up 10% year-over-year, with record Core FFO of $1.89 per share and EBITDA up 14% to $868 million. Bookings added $201 million and pushed the signed-but-not-commenced backlog to $852 million, providing multi-year visibility.
The strongest signal is pricing power. Renewal spreads climbed 8% on a cash basis and over 11% on GAAP. In hyperscale, re-leasing spreads approached 20% a clear indicator that energized megawatts in key metros now carry a scarcity premium.
Development remains aggressive and disciplined. About $900 million in CapEx went toward AI-ready campuses, with 50 MW delivered at 85% pre-lease and another 50 MW breaking ground. The construction pipeline totals 730 MW, backed by more than 5 GW of future land capacity in core U.S. markets.
Funding stays balanced through targeted asset sales, ATM equity, and a strong capital structure: $7 billion in liquidity, 94% fixed-rate debt, and leverage at 4.9x below long-term targets. Management raised guidance again, signaling confidence in backlog commencements and rising interconnection margins as AI campuses energize.
Digital Realty has turned constrained power grids into a pricing engine, supported by multi-gigawatt development funds that let it scale without compromising investment-grade discipline.
Read the detailed Digital Realty Q3 2025 breakdown: $1.58B Revenue and $852M Backlog Signal the New Era of Scarcity Pricing
Time-to-Energize: The New Competitive Currency
Across both companies, a shared pattern emerges. Capital is no longer flowing to generic square footage. It is being deployed to energized, power-secured land in metros with deep interconnection ecosystems, to markets aligned with sovereign AI strategies, and to campus formats engineered for AI training and inference.
The competitive frontier has shifted from who can build the biggest box to who can convert scarce power and interconnection density into recurring cash flow with the shortest time-to-energize. For Equinix, the key indicator is the expansion of interconnection and AI fabric density. For Digital Realty, it is the widening gap between contracted rents and replacement cost for energized AI megawatts.
Both are now operating under a new set of constraints where time-to-energize dictates bargaining power with hyperscalers, backlog quality determines visibility, sovereign alignment influences which metros become winners, and capital structures determine who can scale without compromising leverage.
Implications for investors and operators
For capital allocators, several signals stand out. Interconnection growth is becoming a leading indicator of AI readiness. Metro-proximate, power-secured land is evolving into an appreciating asset. Signed-but-not-commenced leases function as embedded growth options. Green and transition financing will increasingly offset the cost of AI-ready builds in power-constrained markets. And large-scale campus programs will require joint-venture and fund structures to avoid balance-sheet strain.
For operators outside these platforms, the bar has risen sharply. Competing on price or basic colo is no longer viable. Route diversity, proximity to hyperscaler regions, sovereign compliance, and structured power procurement are becoming mandatory capabilities in markets where grid capacity behaves like a quota.
The Bottom Line
Equinix is building the AI fabric that connects global compute.
Digital Realty is turning scarce, energized capacity into a structured cash-flow engine.
Together, their Q3 results mark a pivot: the AI infrastructure trade is shifting from CapEx headlines to interconnection control and scarcity pricing.
The entities that own the most relevant interconnection hubs and energized megawatts in the right metros will not just participate in the AI era. They will define the economics of how it scales.