Digitial Infrastructure: A New Frontier And Watt To Know About It

Last week, Duane Morris kicked off a new multipart webinar series—What's Watt— taking a deep dive into the critical relationship between energy and modern data centers and highlighting the trends and technologies reshaping digital infrastructure. The series launched with a state-of-the-market discussion with DigitalBridge's Jeff Ginsberg and Duane Morris' Robert Montejo, moderated by Brad Molotsky. The panel offered insights on the industry's key trends.

Here's Watt you missed:

1. Power Is Key

Watt's Old: Smaller-scale developments with traditional grid access.

Watt's New: A mix of utility power, onsite generation, and creative energy strategies to meet a much greater demand.

AI's explosive growth is reshaping the energy landscape, driving an unprecedented need for reliable, large-scale power. Training and operating advanced AI models requires massive compute clusters that draw far more electricity than traditional cloud workloads, pushing data centers into power ranges once associated with heavy industry. As organizations race to deploy AI capabilities, the demand for high-density facilities, fast interconnection, and resilient energy infrastructure is outpacing what many utilities can deliver on typical timelines. This surge is forcing developers, operators, and policymakers to rethink how and where digital infrastructure is built—prioritizing power availability, alternative generation sources, and innovative grid partnerships to keep pace with AI's accelerating requirement.

2. Infrastructure Is Expensive

Watt's Old: Traditional loan structures with shorter maturities.

Watt's New: Large-scale, multilayered financing with longer terms and institutional investors capable of absorbing significant risk.

The next wave of data center development—driven by AI-scale power and capacity requirements—will require hundreds of billions of dollars in capital. Whether this growth ultimately forms a bubble remains unclear, but its scale is already reshaping credit markets and stretching the capacity of conventional lenders. As banks reach concentration limits and face regulatory constraints, developers increasingly rely on institutional investors, sovereign funds, infrastructure platforms, and hyperscalers with trillion-dollar balance sheets to support long-duration projects. These deals frequently involve complex capital stacks, special purpose vehicles, and financing horizons of 15–25 years to match the lifecycle of large campuses and energy assets.

3. Focus on Execution

Watt's Old: Out of sight, out of mind.

Watt's New: Plan deliberately and anticipate environmental, regulatory, and community challenges.

Ambitious AI-driven demand has raised the stakes for planning and execution in large-scale data center and energy projects. Power generation—whether grid-supplied or onsite—introduces thermal loads, water requirements, land-use impacts, and transmission needs that must be addressed early to keep projects viable. In many regions, particularly in the Western U.S., water constraints, aquifer depletion concerns, and limited cooling alternatives can quickly challenge site feasibility. Local infrastructure pressures, such as noise, construction logistics, easements, and grid constraints, often converge with environmental and community concerns, creating conditions ripe for pushback or organized resistance. Effective execution now means proactive engagement, rigorous resource planning, and transparent mitigation strategies to avoid delays and ensure that projects scale responsibly amid real and growing demand for AI infrastructure.

Find a recording of the full-length discussion here.

Watt's Next: Our webinar series continues with What's Watt: Nuclear Power and the Future of Data Center Construction