Data center site selection criteria.

Multi-gigawatt campuses are measured in thousands of contiguous acres, not single parcels. Site selection starts with land that supports the full build-out — room for generation, substations, cooling, and the data halls themselves — with expansion space for future phases. The land also has to be buildable: above floodplains, with manageable topography, road access, and room for on-site infrastructure.

• Thousands of contiguous acres
• Expansion room across phases
• Above-floodplain, buildable terrain
• Highway and heavy-haul access

Power is the criterion that kills more projects than any other. Grid interconnection queues stretch for years, and the capacity hyperscale operators need has outgrown what many grids can offer on schedule. Sites with a path to multi-gigawatt behind-the-meter generation — natural gas, solar, and wind with redundancy engineered at every layer — reach full load years sooner, and with highly competitive energy economics that hold up across the life of the campus.

• Multi-gigawatt supportable capacity
• Behind-the-meter gas, solar & wind
• Engineered redundancy at every layer
• Highly competitive energy economics

In energy-advantaged regions, water is the constraint most sites discover too late. Strong sites hold permitted water rights sized for cooling at scale — increasingly met with reclaimed and non-potable supply and advanced reuse systems that support operations without burdening local aquifers and communities. A site without secured water is a site without a schedule.

• Permitted groundwater rights
• Reclaimed & non-potable supply
• Advanced reuse systems
• Sourcing that doesn't burden local resources

A campus is only as fast as its connection to the networks it serves. The best sites carry carrier-neutral fiber with diverse, redundant routes into Tier 1 and Tier 2 networks — multiple entries, physically separated paths, and long-haul access along major corridors. Connectivity selected at acquisition is an advantage built into the land; bolted on later, it is a compromise.

• Carrier-neutral fiber access
• Diverse, redundant routes
• Tier 1 & Tier 2 network reach
• Multiple fiber entries

Permits decide timelines before shovels ever move. Sites move fastest where permitting is handled in-house and directly with the regulators who control them — air, water, and land-use approvals with state agencies and local authorities — so the campus arrives fully compliant and genuinely shovel-ready, rather than shovel-ready on paper.

• In-house permitting teams
• Direct engagement with regulators
• Air, water & land-use approvals
• Fully compliant, shovel-ready delivery

The final criterion ties the rest together: how quickly a site goes from acquisition to a campus ready to build. Every month saved is compute delivered ahead of the competition. The fastest projects are delivered by a single team that controls land, power, water, and connectivity under one roof — compressing the distance between selecting a site and breaking ground.

• Land-to-shovel-ready under one roof
• Time-to-power measured in years saved
• Integrated delivery, not coordination
• Ready for future densities