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ICF Real Estate Colloquium: Beyond Bricks and Bytes: The Data Center Investment Landscape
Snyder Forum
Yale School of Management 165 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511, United States
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Beyond Bricks and Bytes: The Data Center Investment Landscape
Demand for U.S. power consumption from data center servers is expected to reach 35 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, with Blackstone anticipating $1 trillion to be spent on new data centers over the next five years. As data centers emerge as one of real estate's most dynamic asset classes, the intersection of digital infrastructure and property investment presents unprecedented opportunities and challenges. From the surge in artificial intelligence computing demands to the widespread adoption of remote work, data centers have become critical assets that blur the traditional lines between technology and real estate investment. The industry's expansion, accelerated by pandemic-driven digital transformation, has triggered a fundamental recalibration of data center strategies, locations, and specifications. Federal initiatives such as incentives brokered through the Biden Administration’s CHIPS Act, combined with state and local tax exemptions for data center equipment, aim to help meet the rising demand for data centers while promoting U.S. competitiveness in this sector on the international stage.
Join us for a lunchtime discussion that will decode the complexities of data center investments, from power infrastructure and sustainability considerations to emerging market opportunities and valuation methodologies. This panel brings together Yale alumni from asset management and technology market research to explore this rapidly evolving sector. Our panelists will examine the environmental implications of this growing sector, including water usage concerns, renewable energy adoption, and innovative cooling solutions that address climate impact. They will share their perspectives on how technological advances, regulatory changes, and sustainability imperatives are reshaping investment strategies in this novel asset class.
The conversation and Q&A will be moderated by Prof. Cameron LaPoint.
Teddy Miller
As Senior Manager of Competitive Intelligence at Equinix, the world's leading interconnected digital infrastructure company, Teddy focuses on supporting executive decision-making through competitive strategy and analysis. He joined Equinix in 2024 after three years at enterprise cloud computing provider VMware leading up to its $69B acquisition by Broadcom. Previously, Teddy covered the Data Center Services & Infrastructure industry as a research analyst at 451 Research (now part of S&P Global Market Intelligence). He graduated from Yale College with B.A. in History and East Asian Languages & Literature in 2016 and received his M.B.A. from Yale School of Management in 2021.
Cole Weston
Cole is a Director at Yale Investments with over 10 years of real estate finance experience. He manages Yale Endowment’s real estate portfolio, oversees relationships with managers, and leads investments in GP controlled funds, co-investments and secondaries across all sectors within real estate. Before joining Yale Investments, Cole worked in real estate investing across the capital structure and in various real estate sectors at Morgan Stanley and Dune Real Estate Partners. Most recently, he worked at KKR where he was a Principal on the real estate equity team. He graduated from Yale College in 2013 with a B.A. in Economics and received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 2020, where he graduated with high distinction as a Baker Scholar.
Food Provided (Pizza)