Beyond Demand: A New Playbook for De-Risking the Data Center Boom

NEW YORK, NY – June 29, 2026

The digital age is in the midst of an unprecedented construction boom, driven by the voracious computational needs of artificial intelligence. With Goldman Sachs projecting a staggering $7.6 trillion in cumulative AI infrastructure spending by 2031, the demand for data centers appears limitless. Yet, a fundamental disconnect is emerging between market demand and project deliverability. A growing graveyard of delayed and blocked projects reveals a critical new challenge for investors: building the backbone of the AI economy is becoming as much about navigating physical and social constraints as it is about capitalizing on digital demand.

In a strategic move to address this execution crisis, alternative investment manager Altes Capital and data infrastructure firm Zero Intensity have announced a collaboration. The partnership aims to inject a new level of rigor into data center underwriting by systematically evaluating the environmental, operational, and community risks that increasingly determine a project's fate. This initiative signals a pivotal shift in infrastructure investment, moving beyond simple demand forecasts to a more sophisticated analysis of a project's real-world viability.

The Billion-Dollar Bottleneck

The scale of the deliverability problem is staggering. In 2025 alone, data center projects with a combined value of at least $156 billion were either blocked or significantly delayed in the United States, according to industry analyst Data Center Watch. This trend has only accelerated, with some reports indicating that between 30% and 50% of large data centers scheduled to come online this year will face delays.

The roadblocks are multifaceted. Chief among them is power availability. The immense electricity consumption of modern data centers, which can rival that of a small city, is straining local grids. A 2025 Deloitte survey of power companies and data center executives found that grid stress was their single greatest development challenge. Compounding this is a complex and often underestimated permitting process, which can take up to 18 months and is fraught with potential for cascading delays across zoning, environmental, and utility approvals.

Perhaps the most potent and unpredictable factor is growing community opposition. The "Not In My Backyard" (NIMBY) sentiment, once reserved for factories and landfills, is now squarely aimed at data centers. Recent Gallup polling indicates that seven in ten Americans oppose building AI data centers in their local communities, citing concerns over noise, water consumption, strained public utilities, and the development of green spaces. This opposition is no longer a fringe issue; it has become a powerful, bipartisan force capable of derailing even the most well-funded projects.

For investors, this complex web of risks creates a significant underwriting challenge. The traditional metrics of demand and potential return are no longer sufficient. The crucial question has become: can this project actually be built, powered, and sustained?

A New Underwriting Playbook

The collaboration between Altes Capital and Zero Intensity is a direct response to this new reality. Altes plans to integrate the 'Zero Intensity Protocol,' or ZIP, into its diligence process for data center infrastructure investments. This framework is designed to standardize how environmental attributes and community risks are measured, verified, and reported at the individual asset level.

“The next phase of data center development will depend as much on deliverability as on demand,” said Jonathan Siegel of Altes Capital. “Power access, permitting credibility, community acceptance, and long-term financeability are becoming central to underwriting. We believe more rigorous environmental-intensity analysis can help improve transparency, reduce execution risk, and support infrastructure that is more resilient, more accountable, and better aligned with the communities where it is built.”

At its core, the protocol provides a consistent lens through which to evaluate the very factors causing today's project bottlenecks. By creating a standardized methodology, it moves these risks from the realm of qualitative guesswork to quantitative analysis. Assets that meet the protocol's criteria can qualify for Zero Intensity’s 'Clean Compute℠' designation, a mark intended to signal to the market that a project has undergone rigorous evaluation of its environmental and operational performance. This is not a government certification but a market-driven tool designed to differentiate assets and provide investors with a clearer, more consistent basis for comparison.

From Fragmented Data to Actionable Intelligence

Historically, evaluating the environmental and social performance of a data center has been a challenging, ad-hoc process. The necessary data is often inconsistent, self-reported, and difficult for outside parties to verify, making true like-for-like comparisons nearly impossible.

“Environmental performance data for this asset class has historically been fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to verify,” explained David Tucker of Zero Intensity. “Our goal is to change that, building a more standardized and credible framework that supports underwriting, diligence, and long-term infrastructure ownership, while laying the groundwork for markets that can reprice risk, redirect capital at scale, and create stronger incentives for operators to optimize outcomes.”

The strategic value of this approach lies in its ability to transform disparate data points into actionable business intelligence. For an investment manager like Altes, this means being able to more accurately price execution risk and identify projects with a higher probability of success. For data center operators, it provides a clear roadmap for designing and running facilities that are not only efficient but also financeable and insurable over the long term.

Reshaping the Risk Landscape

The implications of this data-driven approach extend beyond investment diligence and into the critical domain of insurance. As physical and operational risks for these multi-billion-dollar assets intensify, the insurance market is evolving its own underwriting models.

Chelley Schaper, an EVP at the insurance brokerage CAC, part of The Baldwin Group, confirmed this trend. "The insurance market is evolving as insurance carriers use environmental data in shifting from binary coverage decisions to dynamic premium pricing tied to measurable sustainability metrics," she stated. "Businesses that can demonstrate superior performance across such metrics are increasingly being rewarded with better access to coverage in what remains a highly competitive market. Support from resources like Zero Intensity is making their data accessible and actionable, giving clients a real pricing advantage."

This shift creates a powerful financial incentive for operators to embrace greater transparency and higher performance standards. A project that can provide verified, asset-level data on its power sourcing, water efficiency, and community engagement is no longer just a 'good corporate citizen'—it is a better-managed risk. This can translate directly into more favorable insurance premiums and broader access to capital, creating a competitive advantage in a crowded market.

By linking environmental and social performance to financial outcomes, the collaboration between Altes Capital and Zero Intensity represents a sophisticated strategy to navigate the growing complexities of infrastructure development. It is an acknowledgment that in the race to build the future of AI, the winners will be those who can prove not only that their projects are in demand, but that they are fundamentally deliverable.