Data Center & Digital Infrastructure
Development, ownership, and operation of hyperscale and colocation data centers—including powered shell buildouts, greenfield campus development, and edge facilities—alongside the project finance banks, infrastructure funds, and legal counsel that structure debt, sale-leasebacks, and M&A for digital infrastructure platforms.
“data center development and colocation platforms, and the project finance advisors behind digital infrastructure transactions”
That sentence was the entire instruction. Everything on this page was researched from it and then verified against public sources: 23 experts kept, 0 dropped in verification.
Experts
Grouped by archetype · searchableFounder / Operator
5Jim Trout
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
CleanArc Data Centers
Serial data-center founder (Vantage, CleanArc) with 25 years building hyperscale capacity, now raising institutional capital for a $3B+, ~1GW renewables-powered campus pipeline.
Chris Crosby
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Compass Datacenters
Founder-CEO of a $5.5B+ Brookfield/OTPP-backed hyperscale developer with direct authority over site selection, capacity commitments, and utility negotiations nationwide.
Bernard Looney
Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
Prometheus Hyperscale
Ex-BP CEO now controls a $30B+ AI data center buildout and can open doors across energy financing, power procurement, and hyperscale infrastructure deals.
Nicholas Pell
Chief Executive Officer and President
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust
He runs the acquisition strategy for Blackstone's newly IPO'd, $1.75B data-center REIT and has twice been the operator whose company Blackstone itself acquired.
Svein Atle Hagaseth
Co-founder
Heim Datacenter
Ex-Green Mountain CEO now building a fresh Nordic hyperscale platform from scratch — a rare read on where smart Nordic colocation capital is heading next.
Strategic Advisor
5Doug Fleit
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
PowerHouse Data Centers
Co-founder/CEO of a $1B+ hyperscale data center platform with active land, power, and capital deals across the top ten U.S. markets right now.
Rob Roy
Founder & CEO
Switch
Founder-CEO who took Switch public, sold it for $11B, and is now steering its AI-factory pivot with NVIDIA and $20B in fresh capital.
Jon Edwards
Executive Vice President, Head of Capital Markets
Switch
Jon Edwards architects Switch's entire debt capital stack, controlling how a leading AI-era data center platform accesses billions in structured and bank financing.
Susanna Kass
Operating Partner
Digital Gravity Infrastructure Partners
Ex-eBay/HP/Oracle data-center operations chief turned infrastructure investor whose Absolute Zero framework and hyperscaler relationships make her a sharp technical diligence call for colocation deals.
Achal Arora
Managing Director – Digital Infrastructure Investments
Legal & General Group
As the MD building L&G's new €600m digital infrastructure fund, he controls fresh capital actively hunting data center, fibre and cloud deals in Europe.
Investment Banker
4Sean Yajnik
Head of Digital Infrastructure Advisory - Americas
Macquarie Capital
Leads Macquarie Capital's Americas digital infrastructure advisory practice, giving deal teams a direct line into live data center M&A and financing activity.
Scott Wilcoxen
Head of Digital Infrastructure Investment Banking
J.P. Morgan
He leads J.P. Morgan's digital infrastructure banking group, the desk structuring many of the largest data-center capital stacks in the current AI buildout.
Jason Hill
Co-Head of Digital Infrastructure, U.S. Technology Group
Houlihan Lokey
Co-heads Houlihan Lokey's U.S. Technology Group and runs its Digital Infrastructure practice, giving him line of sight into most colocation and data center deal flow.
Karen Fang
Global Head of Infrastructure & Sustainable Finance
Bank of America
She runs BofA's infrastructure finance desk that just structured $14B for an Oracle data center — a direct line into hyperscaler debt capacity and utility power-supply deals.
Legal / Service Provider
5Richard Ludwig
Director, Digital Infrastructure
Alantra
Alantra's lead digital infrastructure banker has real-time visibility into who's buying, selling, and pricing data center and fibre assets across Europe, the US, and Africa.
Kemal Hawa
Partner, Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
The lawyer of record on nearly every marquee data center and tower deal of the last few years — a near-mandatory call before any digital infrastructure transaction.
Wesley Smith
Partner, Real Estate Practice
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Structures the debt stack behind hyperscale data center construction financings — a lawyer who bridges power-contract structuring and CMBS capital markets.
Michael Rechtin
Partner, Real Estate Practice
Latham & Watkins LLP
One of a handful of elite data center leasing lawyers in the US, with deep hyperscaler lease, JV, and financing experience across nearly every major digital infrastructure sponsor.
Chelsea Pullen
Partner, Real Estate Practice
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
A just-hired Simpson Thacher data center leasing partner with live, cross-firm visibility into hyperscaler lease terms, comps, and deal flow across the U.S. and Asia.
Peer Fund / Dealmaker
4Marc Ganzi
President & Chief Executive Officer
DigitalBridge
Ganzi runs DigitalBridge's entire data-center, tower, and fiber platform and is mid-acquisition by SoftBank, giving him a live, top-of-market read on AI-driven colocation demand and power constraints.
Mike Forman
Senior Managing Director, Head of Americas Acquisitions and Global Head of Digital Infrastructure
Blackstone Real Estate
Forman runs Blackstone's digital infrastructure investing globally and just took on all Americas acquisitions — he sees nearly every large data center deal in the market first.
Ahmed Yahia Al Idrissi
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
MGX
As MGX's CEO and AIP Vice Chairman, he directs tens of billions in AI/data-center capital, including the record $40B Aligned Data Centers buyout — a must-know check-writer for colocation deals.
Jan Vesely
Partner, Leader of EQT AI Infrastructure
EQT Infrastructure
Vesely co-leads EQT's new AI Infrastructure strategy and controls how EQT deploys capital across data centers, power and connectivity deals globally.
Companies
Ranked by edge depthMacquarie Asset Management
World's largest infrastructure-asset manager and a major investor in renewable energy, transport, telecom, and water.
Houlihan Lokey
Global investment bank ranked #1 for M&A advisory, restructuring, and fairness opinions with 30+ offices worldwide and dedicated healthcare group covering behavioral health subsector.
Oracle
Enterprise software company providing Oracle Health and Life Sciences division; cloud-based applications and infrastructure for drug development, clinical research, and healthcare operations.
Aligned Data Centers
Dallas-based hyperscale data center operator with 50 campuses and 5GW+ operational and planned capacity, recently acquired by AIP/MGX/GIP consortium for $40B in 2026.
Anthropic
San Francisco-based AI safety and research company founded in 2021, developing Claude AI models focused on reliability, interpretability, and steerable AI systems for enterprise deployment.
BP plc
Global energy company with operations in exploration, production, refining, and marketing of oil and gas, plus renewable energy including biofuels, hydrogen, solar, and wind.
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust
Newly IPO'd REIT (May 2026, NYSE: BXDC) focused on acquiring mission-critical data centers leased to hyperscale tenants on long-term contracts, managed by Blackstone.
Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust (BXDC)
Newly-public REIT launched May 2026 investing in mission-critical, income-generating data center properties leased to hyperscale tenants on long-term contracts.
Digital Realty
World's largest wholesale data center REIT operating 300+ facilities in 55+ metros globally; provides colocation, connectivity, and interconnection solutions.
IFM Investors
Australian pension fund collective managing A$216.8 billion in infrastructure, private equity, and listed equity investments globally.
Involta LLC
Multi-tenant data center operator (rebranded to Ark Data Centers in 2026) with 12 facilities and 12,000-mile fiber network primarily in Midwest U.S.
J.P. Morgan
Leading global financial services institution providing investment banking, commercial banking, asset management, and financial advisory to corporations and institutional clients worldwide.
Link Logistics
Blackstone-founded (2019) owner-operator of last-mile industrial real estate with 3,000+ warehouses across 40+ North American markets, following $19B GLP portfolio acquisition.
Moeve (Cepsa)
Major Spanish energy company (formerly Cepsa) with 11,000+ employees operating E&P, refining, and transitioning toward low-carbon energy including green hydrogen, biofuels, and mobility.
NVIDIA
World leader in AI accelerated computing, pioneering GPU and data center chip technology for AI, cloud, and high-performance computing workloads.
OpenAI
San Francisco-based AI research and deployment company developing large language models and AI systems, including GPT-3, DALL-E, and ChatGPT for enterprise and consumer applications.
Preylock Holdings
Los Angeles-based commercial real estate acquisition, development, and management firm with $4B+ AUM across office and industrial properties, representing borrowers in complex capital structures.
Prometheus Hyperscale
AI-focused hyperscale data center developer building 2.5GW+ capacity in Wyoming with proprietary geothermal power technology enabling zero-water-use operations.
QTS Data Centers
Leading data center REIT operating 7+ million sq ft of mega-scale colocation infrastructure across North America and Europe; acquired by Blackstone for ~$10B in 2021.
The Carlyle Group
Global private equity leader with $485B AUM managing diversified portfolio across private equity, credit, and infrastructure; active in data center and telecom infrastructure.
Type One Energy
Bill Gates-backed fusion energy developer pioneering stellarator technology for commercially viable nuclear fusion power generation, targeting 350 MWe production.
U.S. Internet Corp.
Pure-play fiber internet provider offering residential and commercial broadband services with 100% fiber network in Minneapolis metro area.
Vertical Bridge
Largest private operator of wireless communications towers in the U.S. with 17,000+ tower portfolio; acquired 6,300+ Verizon towers for $3.3B in 2025.