The Physical Frontier of Digital Growth
As cloud services, artificial intelligence (AI), and edge computing evolve from trends to necessities, the invisible infrastructure powering these technologies is undergoing a massive transformation. At the heart of this transformation is land — specifically, land zoned and engineered for hyperscale data centers. In 2025, digital growth is not only driven by lines of code but also by concrete, power lines, and zoning ordinances.
Across the globe, investment firms, cloud giants, and developers are racing to acquire land suited for data center development. In key markets like Northern Virginia, Phoenix, and Dublin, parcels zoned for data center use have appreciated faster than even prime residential neighborhoods. But acquiring land is no longer a simple real estate transaction — it’s now a complex puzzle requiring technical insight into power infrastructure, fiber routes, cooling systems, and hyperscaler requirements.
This is why real estate teams are increasingly partnering with colocation and infrastructure experts to guide their strategy. These specialists bring a deep understanding of how digital workloads interact with physical constraints — and they’re reshaping how land is sourced, assessed, and secured.
Why the Land Grab Is Heating Up
1. Demand Has Outpaced Supply
The explosion of AI training models, cloud-native applications, and high-density colocation deployments has far outpaced projections from even a few years ago. Enterprises and hyperscalers are demanding:
- Multi-phase data center campuses exceeding 300 megawatts (MW)
- Sites that can scale seamlessly over 5 to 10 years
- Locations with direct access to reliable utilities and low-latency connectivity
The result is a mismatch between demand and available land supply. Many metros are already constrained, forcing developers to either overpay for entitled land or look toward secondary markets. For instance, in Loudoun County, Virginia, the price of entitled land has doubled in just two years due to fierce competition.
2. Power Access Is the New Currency
Land with no power is useless to a data center operator. Today, the viability of a parcel depends on its relationship to existing or planned electrical infrastructure. Land is considered “hot” if it meets at least one of the following criteria:
- It has existing access to utility-scale substations.
- It's located near a renewable energy corridor.
- It has been approved for substation construction or fast-track interconnection.
Power availability is now prioritized over geography. Hyperscalers are even requesting Letters of Intent (LOIs) for power from utilities before finalizing land deals. This means that every land transaction is now rooted in a power-first strategy — and technical advisors are crucial to evaluating capacity, redundancy, and future expansion potential.
3. Zoning and Permitting Headwinds
In many cities and counties, residents and officials are pushing back against unregulated data center sprawl. Their concerns include:
- High water usage, especially for evaporative cooling
- Visual and noise pollution from mechanical systems
- Grid strain from massive energy draws
To avoid delays, developers seek pre-entitled land that’s already zoned for industrial or digital infrastructure use. But even then, navigating environmental studies, heat mitigation requirements, and community engagement processes requires specialized knowledge.
This is where colocation professionals — who understand both the technical and regulatory aspects of deployment — become indispensable.
Enter the Colo Experts: Why Real Estate Teams Need Them
Traditional brokers, while skilled in property negotiation, often lack the technical expertise required to evaluate a site’s digital readiness. That’s why colocation and infrastructure advisors are increasingly brought in early — sometimes before a site is even on the market.
Here’s how they add value:
Site Selection and Evaluation
Colo experts evaluate more than square footage. They analyze:
- Connectivity: Proximity to fiber backbones, subsea cable landing stations, and major cloud on-ramps
- Power Density: Whether a site can support 30kW or higher per rack — a growing requirement for AI and HPC workloads
- Scalability: Potential for modular builds, multi-tenant infrastructure, and phased expansions
- Environmental Constraints: Soil quality, floodplain risks, seismic zones, and water access
Vendor and Ecosystem Alignment
Selecting a site is just the first step. Colo experts help identify:
- Utility partners for substations or redundant feeds
- Network carriers with diverse fiber paths
- Equipment vendors offering immersion cooling, liquid cooling, or high-efficiency power delivery
- Sustainability metrics like carbon offset options or heat recovery integrations
They also advise on how to align with hyperscaler technical requirements, ESG goals, and RFP expectations.
Facility Design Consultation
Even before groundbreaking, colo experts assist with:
- Design planning for optimal mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) layouts
- Cooling strategies tailored to dense AI deployments (e.g., liquid cooling loops, closed-loop systems)
- Workflow mapping to ensure operational efficiency, from rack deployment to customer access
Their insights influence everything from loading dock design to power zone segmentation.
How Deals Are Changing
Land deals used to be simple. Today, they’re layered with technical contingencies and infrastructure dependencies.
What’s New in 2025:
- Power LOIs Required: Deals often hinge on guaranteed access to a specific megawatt threshold.
- Pre-Leasing Clauses: Some contracts include escape clauses if anchor tenants aren’t secured.
- Environmental & Latency Due Diligence: Surveys now include site resiliency scores, latency to cloud regions, and energy audit reports.
- Joint Advisory Teams: Data center REITs and private equity firms are blending real estate, IT, and telecom expertise in a single team.
This convergence has turned site acquisition into a multi-disciplinary operation — one where colo professionals are central to success.
Markets Where the Grab Is Most Intense
Northern Virginia (Loudoun & Prince William County)
- Key Drivers: Close proximity to cloud hubs, mature fiber infrastructure, and access to federal markets.
- Challenges: Zoning freezes, energy moratoriums, and neighborhood opposition.
- Why Colo Input Matters: Colo experts help navigate evolving local regulations and support energy-efficient designs that satisfy both tenant and community needs.
Phoenix, Arizona
- Key Drivers: Ample land, tax incentives, solar potential.
- Challenges: Water rights, heat management, and growing competition.
- Why Colo Input Matters: They model sustainable cooling strategies and ensure grid reliability in extreme heat.
Central Ohio (Columbus & New Albany)
- Key Drivers: Intel’s $20B megafab and hyperscaler presence.
- Challenges: Power transmission bottlenecks and surging land prices.
- Why Colo Input Matters: Their insight helps buyers target sites near high-voltage corridors and avoid future grid congestion.
Sweden, Finland, and the Nordics
- Key Drivers: Clean, abundant hydro and wind power.
- Challenges: Remote connectivity and latency to global hubs.
- Why Colo Input Matters: They optimize routing to cloud regions and evaluate long-haul fiber transit.
Investment Firms Get Aggressive
Private capital is no longer content to wait on the sidelines. Today’s investors are:
- Forming strategic joint ventures with colocation operators and hyperscalers
- Banking land years ahead of projected need to beat competition
- Deploying capital only when technical feasibility, power, and latency are validated
These firms are building internal colo advisory teams to pre-qualify every acquisition — ensuring that the land can support the demands of tomorrow’s compute-intensive environments.
The Risk of Flying Blind
Real estate teams that ignore technical feasibility do so at their peril. Mistakes are costly and include:
- Purchasing unviable land (e.g., inadequate power, no cooling water, unsuitable latency)
- Losing critical time in the development cycle due to grid access delays
- Failing to meet hyperscaler standards, resulting in lost deals
The winners in this land race are those who combine speed with precision — and who bring technical talent into every land evaluation.
What Brokers and Site Selectors Should Know
If you’re involved in data center real estate deals, consider this your new playbook:
- Partner with colo advisors early — before RFPs or purchase negotiations
- Understand hyperscaler requirements — beyond just size and price
- Think long-term — design for 5, 10, even 15 years of expansion
- Use platforms like Datacenters.com — to compare available parcels, connectivity, and power profiles
For enterprises and cloud-native companies:
- The best land is going fast. By the time your workload is ready, top-tier locations may be gone.
- Engage now. Work with colocation advisors to identify scalable, compliant, and future-ready sites.
Real Estate Is Infrastructure
The land grab isn’t just about acreage. It’s about access — to power, proximity, and performance. More than ever, data center growth is being determined by those who understand the intersection of digital demand and physical capability.
Colocation professionals are the translators between technical specifications and real-world assets. They’re the ones who can tell if a site will meet the power density of an AI model, or if a fiber route can support real-time analytics across continents.
In the new digital economy, land is more than property. It’s platform. And those who can navigate both the data and the dirt — the digital and the physical — will own the future.
