February 2026
From dirt to data: Infrastructure and real estate investors unearth opportunities in powered land
By Kali Arevalo
February 1, 2026
Picture a vast expanse of land, unfurling under open skies. At first glance, it appears to be a humble stretch of earth, but the buzz of transmission towers and substations nearby signify electric promise. To the untrained eye, it may look like mere soil and grass, but to investors, it’s a gold mine.
This is what has become known as powered land: infrastructure-furnished sites either with a confirmed connection to the grid or contracts in place. The future-proofed land has secured a realistic, deliverable path to electricity through permitting, interconnection rights, utility commitments and supporting infrastructure — even before vertical development begins. Essentially, the electricity equation is already solved before the first brick is ever laid.
Unsurprisingly, powered land is increasingly piquing interest in the institutional community amid skyrocketing demand for artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, hyperscale and electrification projects. Andrew McDaniel, founding partner at Meadow Partners, explains, “Increasing institutional investor interest in powered and/or grid-connected land is being driven by scarcity and attraction to assets that can generate long-term, inflation-protected cash flows. Available land is generally scarce, but available land with any economic ability to connect to the grid at scale is still of dramatically lower supply.”
Investment firms are becoming more aware of the value in powered land and are making moves to claim a piece of the pie. Meadow, for one, is proactively generating grid-connected land and infrastructure investment opportunities within its target markets in the United States and Europe.
In July 2025, Stonepeak launched a land-aggregation platform dedicated to building a diversified portfolio of grid-connected sites to support the development of critical renewable-energy infrastructure across Europe. The platform, known as JouleTerra, will acquire and lease land to renewable operators under long-term contracts, giving them access to land they would have otherwise had to procure and develop themselves through capital-intensive processes. Stonepeak plans to grow this platform through acquisitions of both existing platforms and undeveloped land, for which it will secure appropriate permitting and grid connections until the land becomes ready to build.
In addition, global technology investment firm Silver Lake, along with Commonwealth Asset Management’s Adam Fisher and Peter Rumbold, debuted a powered land platform in August 2025. Backed by $400 million of capital, the platform will assemble a global portfolio of powered land sites for data centers, strategically targeting high-growth markets across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, where power access is becoming increasingly scarce.
Accessing power has become one of the most significant bottlenecks for energy-intensive developments such as data centers. Given projections for the market, that challenge is only poised to grow, with total global operating data center capacity projected to reach 220 gigawatts by the end of 2030. That’s up from 65 gigawatts of capacity recorded in 2024, according to Hines, one of the largest privately held real estate investors and managers in the world, which released a report on the powered land opportunity in September 2025.
Kelly Disser, an executive vice president with the Industrial Services Group of commercial brokerage NAI Hiffman, also points out new AI workloads — including foundational models, generative AI and inference — are driving a new type of demand that requires data centers with greater power capacity. Some facilities need up to 1 gigawatt in total, delivered at roughly 1 megawatt per acre. Disser also notes the functionality and requirements of modern data centers differ significantly from previous ones, with higher floor loads to support denser, heavier computing infrastructure and more robust electrical and cooling systems. This explosion in both capacity and capability is expected to translate to a larger need for powered land.
“Land that can be converted into a productive asset is critical to meeting AI and cloud computing demand,” says Disser. “It is a prerequisite for today’s and tomorrow’s data centers built around massive graphics processing units [GPU] clusters” — clusters that require roughly five times the power of traditional cloud data centers, he adds. “Ultimately, every digital interaction requires compute [the energy output required to support the ability to process and manipulate data], and every compute requires power, making access to power — and the land on which it can be captured and utilized — one of the most critical constraints [on] scaling AI and cloud infrastructure.”
Hines estimates every 3 to 4 megawatts of power capacity requires 1 acre of land. The firm’s research shows there are currently about 20,000 acres of powered land sitting under operational data centers around the world. Given these growth projections, another 40,000 acres of powered land — nearly 2 billion square feet — is forecast to be required globally during the next five years to support projected data center growth.
“For data centers and AI-driven uses, the primary constraint has shifted,” says David Steinbach, global CIO at Hines. “It’s not just about constructing buildings anymore; it’s about accessing megawatts. Powered land addresses that constraint by de-risking power availability early in the development cycle.”
Steinbach believes power availability is increasingly shaping location decisions, land values and capital allocation. “For institutional investors, identifying where that [data center] capacity can realistically come online — and on what timelines — has become a core strategic question,” he says.
Location matters
Some regions and markets are standing out in the powered land space more than others.
Experts view North America as a geographic leader — unsurprising as the United States has historically been the main market for the five main hyperscalers: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle and Meta.
Yet, when considering where in the world powered land development makes the most sense, Hines’ research sees a strong case to be made for Europe. As of second quarter 2025, the United States represented about 60 percent of overall data center operating capacity, whereas Europe was closer to 20 percent and Asia was at about 15 percent.
Although some forecasters believe overall European data center capacity will not grow faster than that of the United States, there are specific use segments likely to offer interesting pockets of strong growth — for example, cloud adoption, which currently lags in the European Union but is expected to accelerate at a 20 percent average annual growth rate.
Florent Danset, co-head of European real estate at Harbert Management Corp. (HMC), notes that Europe trails the United States in the powered land market by roughly four to five years. “Europe is highly fragmented,” he says. “Navigating multiple jurisdictions, regulatory frameworks and power regimes makes execution more complex than in the United States.”
HMC, an alternatives manager with $8 billion of assets under management across real estate, infrastructure and private capital, is active in both the U.S. and European markets. Danset notes activity in Europe historically has been concentrated in the FLAP-D cities of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin, but he is now seeing momentum extend to tier 2 markets such as Milan, Berlin and Madrid, and even tier 3 cities such as Athens. Ultimately, he adds, the opportunity set in powered land is defined less by geography and more by access to grid capacity.
“In some parts of Europe, grid capacity is already effectively tapped out,” says Danset. “In markets such as the United Kingdom or Ireland, gaining access to power can take seven to nine years, which makes execution significantly more complex.”
As a result, HMC is focusing on regions where grid access can be secured more quickly, including tier 2 cities and countries such as France that benefit from excess power capacity. “The opportunity set is expanding gradually, but it remains a very compelling space within the European market,” he adds.
When it comes to data center investment in Asia, the rollout has been far from uniform. Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong historically have outpaced their neighbors in development, according to a September 2025 report from White & Case. Capacity in Asia Pacific is expected to double to around 30 gigawatts by 2027/2028. However, developed markets face constraints in power and land supply, giving rise to new hubs in the region. Some companies, such as Singapore-based data center provider Princeton Digital Group (PDG), have executed powered land deals that will give them an edge. In September 2024, PDG acquired powered land for 500 megawatts of capacity expansion across India’s Mumbai and Chennai, Malaysia’s Johor, and Indonesia’s Jakarta to deepen the company’s strategic partnership with hyperscalers for their AI infrastructure expansion. The 500 megawatts of capacity would occupy more than 88 acres, making the respective facilities among the largest AI-ready campuses in those regions.
Steinbach envisions the next wave of data center development concentrating where power, land and policy align. That includes expansion beyond established U.S. hubs such as Northern Virginia into power-rich regions such as parts of the Midwest and Texas, as well as policy-supported markets in Europe such as Germany, Ireland and the Nordics. Steinbach also has observed early momentum in the Middle East, driven by sovereign investment in AI, renewables and grid infrastructure.
According to Arash Shojaie, partner at Australian investment manager QIC, renewable-energy developers are being increasingly selective in pursuing the most attractive sites for project development. QIC was among the first to champion the cause of powered land as a discrete opportunity set. The firm holds one of the largest powered land portfolios in the United States through its portfolio company Renewa, which provides long-term capital solutions to landowners and renewable-energy developers.
“The scarcity of grid connections is having a very economically rational impact on markets in that natural selection is leading to the best sites most likely to progress to completion,” he says. “Renewable developers are becoming pragmatic, concentrating on sites with existing or highest-probability grid connections.”
This takes the form of sites that are close to substations, city centers and end users. Sites that are within existing data center clusters also are in high demand to give data center providers the ability to deliver cloud or AI services their end users are consuming on a 24-hour basis, seven days a week, without any interruption.
“The best thing about this powered land trend is that it is universally relevant,” notes Shojaie. “The intrinsic value of grid connections is increasingly being recognized across all continents and countries.”
How big is the opportunity set?
Although powered land is often associated with data center development, it also is being sought after in regard to industrial reshoring, new manufacturing, power generation, energy storage, electric vehicle charging, grid maintenance, and other crucial assets and industries. It is being increasingly viewed through both an infrastructure and a real estate investment lens as the two asset classes increasingly converge.
Greenlight Data Centers, a platform created by Digital Power Optimization to accelerate the development of AI-ready data center sites, approaches powered land as real estate. Alex Stoewer, Greenlight’s CEO, says, “Securing firm access to power on short timeframes requires a rare combination of physical infrastructure, buildable land, amenable communities and, most importantly, a utility commitment to provide power on a specific timetable.”
HMC approaches powered land primarily as a real estate investment, underwriting these sites initially as logistics developments. However, Danset notes not all logistics or industrial land is suitable for data center use.
“There are a number of stars that need to align for these industrial land plots to be suitable as a data storage location for a hyperscaler or a colocation provider,” he says.
Indeed, numerous industry participants refer to the powered land play as a tricky process — one that requires execution, timing and coordination among utilities, regulators and capital. But it can be difficult to bring so many moving parts into harmony. As Disser puts it, “While the ability to connect to the grid is an obvious box to check, it is only one part of the broader equation. Many other factors must be aligned, with equal importance to project adjacency, to successfully complete a project.”
As a result, experts see powered land as a niche and a small, addressable segment of the current market, which remains a relatively concentrated field. Although many developers can construct data centers, Steinbach says far fewer have the experience required to navigate land aggregation, zoning, utility coordination, interconnection queues and multiyear timelines simultaneously. Because of that, capital is increasingly focused on enabling capacity rather than simply delivering square footage, which has narrowed the universe of effective operators.
“In the short to medium term, powered land is unlikely to become a scaled opportunity set, but it is likely to become a meaningful segment while remaining relatively modest within the broader infrastructure universe,” says Shojaie. “In the long term, there is upside potential as the scale of powered land expands.”
When it comes to investing in it as real estate versus infrastructure, Shojaie believes the appropriate investment lens for powered land is determined by where its primary risks reside. “From my perspective, the risks today overwhelmingly sit with the energy infrastructure: electricity flows, electricity demand, electricity reliability, grid emissions, electricity price and, if relevant, renewable-energy resources,” he says. “As a result, an infrastructure investment lens is most appropriate at this stage. Over time, as these risks diminish and cash flows stabilize, a real estate framework, recognizing intrinsic land value, may become more appropriate. We’ll have to wait and see.”
McDaniel, on the other hand, identifies the biggest investment risk in the powered land space as potential irrational exuberance with respect to the data center arms race. “Invariably, technology will change and improve while space and power needs will differ over time,” he says. “Even if the demand growth for computing power stays highly positive, as it likely will, it will be surprising if we do not see some big bets go wrong in the data center space.”
Nevertheless, optimism continues to surround the powered land opportunity set. Although it has been called “plug-and-play” real estate, industry professionals such as Disser challenge this assessment, saying its arduousness is precisely what makes it so prized.
“There is a common misconception regarding the mythical ‘powered land’ as a plug-and-play asset,” says Disser. “The opportunity lies in identifying the ability to create and deliver power at scale. It is not readily available, which drives its premium value. When that solution, or the path to that solution, is executable, the value is significant.”
Experts suggest the projected $5 trillion of investment in infrastructure that is expected globally carries positive signals for the powered land space. Disser, for one, likens the movement to past modernizations that transformed society, such as the Industrial Revolution and the build-out of the internet. As the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats. As infrastructure investment grows and the focus on opportunities such as digitalization, reshoring, power generation and electrification continue to ramp up, powered land, too, could have a significant role to play in the next era of the investment universe.
“This is not just a technology story; it’s a structural shift in how large-scale real assets are developed and valued,” adds Steinbach. “Over time, powered land is likely to influence portfolio construction in much the same way logistics infrastructure or transportation access did in earlier cycles.”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About NAI Hiffman:
NAI Hiffman is one of the largest independent commercial real estate services firms in the US, with a primary focus on metropolitan Chicago, and part of the NAI Global network. We provide institutional and private leasing, property management, tenant representation, capital markets, project services, research, and marketing services for owners and occupiers of commercial real estate. To meet our clients’ growing needs outside of our exclusive NAI Hiffman territory, we launched Hiffman National, our dedicated property solutions division, which provides property management, project services, and property accounting services across the country. NAI Hiffman | Hiffman National is an award winning company headquartered in suburban Chicago, with more than 275 employees strategically located throughout North America.
About Hiffman National:
Hiffman National is one of the US’s largest independent commercial real estate property management firms, providing institutional and private clients exceptional customized solutions for property management, project management, property accounting, lease administration, marketing, and research. The firm’s comprehensive property management platform and attentive approach to service contribute to successful life-long relationships and client satisfaction. As a nationally bestowed Top Workplace, and recognized CRE award winner, Hiffman National is headquartered in suburban Chicago, with more than 275 employees nationally and an additional six hub locations and 25 satellite offices across North America.
