Due Diligence for Data Centers

INDUSTRY CHALLENGE

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The data center industry's exponential growth in supporting AI infrastructure requires developing new data center assets and facilities to meet rapidly rising demand, creating comprehensive site due diligence for data center investments. McKinsey recently cited that by 2030, data centers will require $6.7 trillion worldwide to keep pace with the demand for compute power, equating to data centers equipped to handle AI processing loads, requiring $5.2 trillion in capital expenditures. These are significant investments, and expert due diligence is required to evaluate land, property, and power suitability, inherent risks, and a site's overall technical, operational, legal, and financial potential before investors and developers commit to capital investments.

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APPROACH
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Leading Edge Design Group (LEDG) works with investors, property developers, and data center operators on data center site due diligence to make informed decisions on data center developments and investments. Example projects include:

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• Evaluating a 55-acre, 300MW+ data center campus opportunity, including repurposing an onsite Class A office building that will be retrofitted to accommodate the first phase of data center development.  LEDG provided utility coordination, site test fitting and concept design, property and site evaluation, and due diligence, contributing as a key partner to the owner’s Go/No-Go decision on the purchase.
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• Providing due diligence, concept design, and cost estimating for an existing 680,000 mixed-use commercial building in downtown Chicago, IL.  LEDG provided concept design for converting the asset to a data center capable of supporting AI inference loads, including the addition of onsite natural gas turbines to complement the utility power available to the facility.
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• Partnering with an investment firm to evaluate a large, 15-building data center campus opportunity, representing 2.3 million square feet of data center space and over 300MW of data center capacity.  LEDG’s concept design included multiple phases, aligning with utility power availability and tenant demand, onsite substations, an onsite power plant leveraging natural gas reciprocating engines, and whitespace design to support AI-intensive workloads.
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RESULTS

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Working with LEDG on data center site due diligence empowers our customers, from property developers to IT and facility leaders in the public and private sectors, to make confident, well-informed capital investment decisions. LEDG’s comprehensive due diligence reports and analysis support board-level approvals and secure financial backing, helping drive successful project outcomes.