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AI’s huge appetite for computing power is fueling a global data-center ramp-up. Investors and builders are counting on the boom to continue.

Not since the height of the industrial revolution have we seen the level of demand for infrastructure capacity that the artificial intelligence boom has created. It’s estimated that roughly 10 times the computing power is needed to conduct a ChatGP search compared to a regular Google search. According to Goldman Sachs, we can expect AI power demand to increase by 165% by 2030; McKinsey forecasts that in Europe alone, meeting the new IT load demand will require between $250 billion to $300 billion of investment, excluding power generation capacity.

AI’s insatiable appetite for computing power, coupled with the current demand/supply conditions for cloud-based AI workflows/use cases, has supercharged the pace of investment and development of data centers. A data center is a facility housing cloud computing and storage resources that enable the delivery of software applications, the training of AI, and any number of additional processing and production applications.

Currently, the US is leading the AI power race, having built the largest number of data centers in the world. Statista reports that as of March, the US was home to 5,426 facilities, followed by Germany with 529, the UK with 523, and China with 449. By 2030, these numbers are expected to increase by about 30-40%. Globally, investment in data centers is forecast to reach $7 trillion.

Land And Power

How does the investment needed to build a data center break down?

“If someone owns a land parcel where data-center development is feasible, then the value of that land is significantly higher than it would be absent that demand,” says Tim McGuire, senior director of Project Finance at Rowan Digital Infrastructure, a developer and builder of data centers in the US. “For example, we see land in core markets like Northern Virginia exceed $2.5 million an acre, and to fit a hyperscaler development—Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft—we’re typically buying a hundred acres plus.”

Energy and water are both crucial cost components, and energy has been the gating issue in most geographies, McGuire adds.

“Data centers are very energy intensive,” he notes, “and even if the energy infrastructure is there to power them, building an interconnection can take months if not years. The cost of building those interconnections can be high. We’re therefore seeing more and more utilities—particularly utilities where the data center boom has really put strain on them—require some form of security for them to undertake the interconnection work.”

Well-capitalized developers that can afford to meet those requirements, have the advantage he says.

The dynamics related to power availability are different for data centers, observes Gordon Bell, principal at EY-Parthenon Digital Infrastructure. “Europe is particularly challenged with respect to power availability, given some of the local regulatory hurdles around expanding the power infrastructure,” he says. “The same thing is also true in North America, whereas in Asia it is relatively fast to build out that infrastructure.”

Graphic processing units (GPUs) are essential for all things AI, and some countries face further restrictions to data center development depending on how many GPUs they can import at any one time, Bell adds.

“Countries like Canada, Japan, Australia, and many in Europe don’t have restrictions on GPU imports,” he says, “which has created another catalyst for growth in the market in those regions.”

Also, different countries will offer specific incentives around the development of data centers. Some Middle Eastern countries, including the United Arab Emirates, are aggressively incentivizing data center development within their borders, he adds.

Financing Data Centers

Because building a data center is extremely capital intensive, backers are typically global companies like Blackstone, notes Claus Hertel, managing director at Rabobank, an active lender in the space and developer of its own green data center in the Netherlands. A lot of investors and lenders have relationships with these big firms and have assembled large project finance teams that are active in renewables, clean tech, and digital infrastructure.

“At the basic level, you have project financing, which incorporates construction, financing, and term financing,” Hertel says. “Once the data center is complete, you have a certain amount of time—typically a three- to four-year period—where the sponsor can decide how to access permanent capital or permanent financing. That could be in the form of asset-backed securities, commercial mortgage-backed securities, or a private placement to long-term investors. So there are different pockets of capital, short-term or longer term.”

Like many of its peers, Rowan Digital Infrastructure is sponsored by a private equity firm, Tim McGuire says.

“Typically, a private equity investor will front some of the pre-development costs, which could include acquiring the land parcel and doing some of the horizontal development,” he notes. “Rowan doesn’t put debt financing in place for projects until we have a signed lease, because at that point, we’re able to obtain very attractive terms. The hyperscaler customers are large, well-capitalized, profitable public companies with high investment-grade credit ratings. After signing a long-term lease with them, it opens low-cost debt capital that provides 80% to 85% of the capital needed to build the project.”

The Future Of Data-Center Investing

“The context for all of this is that the industry has grown tremendously over the last couple of years, and it’s expected to accelerate going forward,” says Gordon Bell. “That just requires more and more capital—more capital than a lot of the existing owners of these assets originally underwrote. They’re looking for ways to raise new capital as well as recycle capital.”

One of the possible solutions that is starting to percolate in the market, he says, is the introduction of dedicated funds that hold a portfolio of stabilized assets.

“That would then provide some diversification of risk and allow various investors looking to get exposure into the space to invest in a fund that holds a portfolio of assets across different markets and different customer,” he says.

“Typically, the stabilized asset deals that we’ve seen are for individual facilities or a handful of individual facilities,” he adds. “Those facilities provide exposure to very specific markets and within each of those facilities there’s oftentimes only a single customer. So, you’re placing a concentrated bet on a single customer and a single market. The private equity deals that have been made thus far have been more one off in nature, a handful of assets, or single assets. It’s not been anything that can programmatically scale globally, which is really what the industry eventually needs—a fund that would hold all these stabilized assets. Investors looking to get exposure into stabilized assets would then just be able to invest into this fund.”

Whatever the mechanism that gets it done, McGuire sees continued strong demand for data center development going forward, driven by continued investment from hyperscalers. AI will be a catalyst, but so will demand for cloud services.

“There’s a lot of support for the data center business for the foreseeable future,” he predicts.

Rouven Bergmann has been CFO of Dassault Systèmes since January 2022. A software company, Dassault Systemes is also active in CAC 40 Index of blue-chip French stocks. It is a unit of the Dassault Group, which has holdings in aeronautics, high tech, digital, and communications.

Global Finance: Since you joined Dasault Systemes, what has been the most challenging period, and why?

Rouven Bergmann: The balance of managing long term and short term is always the biggest struggle for the CFO. You have to create the capacity to invest in the long term, but you also have to manage performance quarter to quarter. Certainly, 2024 was a difficult year, because of volatility in the end markets. There was a lot of geopolitical instability in the world and in Europe. Think back to the European elections and the uncertainty in France. This really has been a headwind in terms of decision cycles.

The timing of decision-making is becoming a bit less predictable for our customers. It’s not that they’re deciding against us or for the competition—that’s not the case. We are winning market share from the competition. But managing the cycle of transactions and deals has become really something that’s more difficult to predict.

To give you an example, we signed a strategic agreement with Volkswagen in December of last year; the first discussion started two years ago.

GF: What’s the impact of the new US tariff policy?

Bergmann: Clearly, 2025, with the situation that the US administration has started with tariffs, is creating a lot of uncertainty for our customers. Now they need to invest and adapt to the new world. I’m not worried about our future, but for sure, there could be short-term volatility and noise.

GF: There is a sort of academic debate over how the role of the CFO has changed: becoming more an ally and business partner of the CEO and less an accountant. What do you think?

Bergmann: I have been in this role for 10 years at different companies. For me, I don’t think it has changed. I think there are three types of CFOs. There is more of an accountant, who comes from the audit function, which I think is more about compliance and implementing standards but has less business interaction. Then there is the CFO who comes from an investment bank, who is more about capital and markets and investor communication. And then there is the operational CFO, who is deeply connected to the company’s value creation cycle. I think today you need to find the right mix of the three.

GF: What do you suggest to someone who is young and wants to become a corporate CFO?

Bergmann: Gain as much experience as you can with a company, in and out of finance. The CFO role is much more than finance; you have to understand the finance function, but also understand how the business works.

For example, when I was already at a very senior level at a software company, I left finance and worked as COO of product development. It was a role that was a combination of operational planning and financial planning. I had to find the right resourceallocation mix, maintaining and optimizing what exists, while freeing up enough capacity to develop new products.

At the same point in time, we all know that there are constraints to resources. You cannot hire as many people as you want, so you really have to find productivity, move people around, and create that flexibility in your workforce. The company where I did that was one of the largest software companies in the world. There were 20,000 engineers in software development. So, I really learned the operational part of the company, and now I can combine that with finance.

On May 27, Chinese EV battery giant CATL raised HK$41 billion (about $5.23 billion) in the world’s largest IPO of 2025 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Shares jumped 16.4% on its debut, with JPMorgan Chase underwriting the deal that propelled the bourse to the top of global rankings.

“CATL’s Hong Kong listing is a significant milestone, not just for the company but for the broader regional market,” said Joshua Chu, a Hong Kong-based lawyer at CITD.

“The scale of the IPO, given the current global macroeconomic headwinds and the cautious investor sentiment in Asia, is impressive,” he added.

The advisers also managed a complex dual-listing process, underscoring Hong Kong’s growing capability to handle large strategic offerings. After all, these were some of the most seasoned global and regional financial institutions and law offices, according to Anandaday Misshra, managing partner of Indian law firm AMLEGALS.

“It is clear that CATL has leaned on deep institutional and sectoral expertise to structure a deal of this magnitude,” Misshra added.

Also, CATL’s Hong Kong listing “shows growing confidence in zero-carbon technologies and the companies building them,” Kapil Dhiman of Quranium said.

“As a company building secure digital infrastructure for the future, we see this as a sign that Hong Kong is ready to play a leading role again in supporting bold, forward-looking industries,” Dhiman adds.

CATL reported a 40% year-on-year increase in EV battery deliveries in the first quarter of the year. Seoul-based SNE Research suggests it also acquired a 38.2% global market share.

CATL’s Hong Kong listing proceeds would be utilized for factory construction in foreign markets—accounting for 30% of its total revenue.

“For now, it looks far more like a war chest. The large earning to spending suggests China will take up any new technologies slowly anyway,” said economist Dr. Bryane Michael of Oxford University.

CATL’s IPO also reflects a broader shift in global capital flows.

“As US-China trade tensions ease, Chinese equities have rebounded strongly, while ongoing US-EU tariff disputes and political uncertainties continue to weigh on US markets,” Chu said. “Hong Kong’s mature market infrastructure and strategic positioning make it an increasingly attractive destination for international investors seeking stability and growth in Asia.”

The world’s largest meat-processing enterprise in sales volumes, São Paulo, Brazil-based JBS, is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on June 12.

The move, a dual listing in the US and Brazil, aims to tap into greater US dollar flows and increased liquidity. Long term, the company hopes to overtake US-based Tyson Foods in market cap, consolidating as the sole global leader in the sector.

Currently, JBS is valued at roughly $16 billion, with $77.2 billion in revenue as of full-year 2024, compared to a $19.8 billion market cap for Tyson Foods on $53.3 billion in revenue.

But despite the seemingly positive outcome for JBS’ shareholders, the Pilgrim’s Pride parent company’s dual listing remains a contentious topic both internally and externally.

Recently, US Senator Elizabeth Warren raised concerns that JBS’s $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee helped get the dual listing approved.

The concerns come on the back of a long history of questionable practices by Joesley and Wesley Batista, the founders and largest shareholders of the company. Back in 2017, the brothers—estimated to be worth roughly $5 billion each—faced six months of incarceration in their home country, Brazil, on bribery charges.

Mighty Earth CEO Glenn Hurowitz also adds that the JBS’ listing raises sustainabilty concerns. “Listing on the NYSE is meant to be a signal to investors that a company is serious about transparency, but JBS has shown its only playbook is hiding the true scale of its destruction, climate emissions, and human rights abuses.”

The dual listing also faced shareholder pushback, passing with just 52% of votes, with claims the plan introduces a dual-class structure that boosts the Batista brothers’ voting power to nearly 85%, up from about 48%. “Investors [ultimately] chose to focus on the stock’s upside potential rather than on governance concerns,” said Igor Guedes, an analyst at Genial Investimentos.