At Datacloud Global World Congress 2025, a panel, moderated by Lockton’s head of internal international real estate practice and co-lead of its global data centre offering, explored critical issues spanning environmental impact, financing, leasing and financing, with a panel of industry experts.

Speakers

• Rachel Norris, partner - Lockton (moderator)
• Natascha Veenendaal, senior associate - Norton Rose Fullbright
• Donna Bridgman, founder - HerWorX
• Amy Young, director of data centres - Clean Energy Capital
• Manjari Govada, managing director - Digital Investment Management
• Caroline Romanski, chief corporate officer - Start Campus

With construction costs skyrocketing, Norris asked how developers are protecting their budgets.

According to Smart Campus’ chief corporate officer, Caroline Romanski stressed: "It’s that early investment in land that you then need to spend time and capital developing into that powered land.”

“Now it’s hundreds of millions… to make sure that we can meet the timelines that we need to.”

She said securing capital early is key: “Now it’s hundreds of millions to make sure that we can meet the timelines that we need to.”

To do this, the company is using “vendor financing” and “supply chain financing.” Meanwhile, HerWorX senior associate, Donna Bridgeman revealed regulation as another new factor. She said: “It’s all about power equity… you’re going to have to put together a master plan and go through permitting at the same time as power provisioning.”

However, rising costs are not the only factors impacting the industry. As a result, Norris asked how power equipment and supply chain issues are affecting timelines.

Romansky explained: “Locking power equipment is the second biggest bottleneck after securing grid capacity.” The wait for transformers is now “one to two years to secure” instead of just months. Why? “Data centers are also competing with renewable energy, which is using exactly the same transformers.”

To stay ahead, she said: “We’ve secured our transformers last August for a delivery… to make sure there is a risk buffer.”

Norris later shifted the conversation to renewable energies and how companies are handling it.

Amy Young, Clean Energy Capitals director of data centre’s cautions against greenwashing. She said: “There’s a lot of good titles, maybe like a PR marketing spin, but actually bringing it back to a truly renewable source that’s being generated, how that’s impacting from a full ESG perspective.”

Bridgeman added client views on backup power are changing too.

She said: “Risk appetite around power is shifting. Do they really want standby diesel generation? Or can they use embedded solar?” She gave an example in Thailand using “80 megawatts of embedded solar.”

She also warned against overbuilding, claiming: “There’s no one-size-fits-all. It has to be fit for purpose.”

She said developers must “take a suite of strategic bets” and not overspend: “You can’t gold-plate it, because everything adds cost.”

According to Natascha Veenendaal, senior associate at Norton Rose Fullbright, the legal landscape is just getting harder.

“We have European regulations, national regulations, and national laws, it’s key to identify which rules apply.” For smaller firms: “Get advisors… if you miss something, it can have serious consequences.”

Meanwhile, Guevara said regulators are catching up, claiming they are realising “that what’s in their backyard contains incredibly valuable information.”

“Two recent deals, both went into phase two regulatory screening. That hadn’t happened in the last seven years. I was up in The Hague meeting with the regulators, explaining why they shouldn’t be worried.”

Romansky added that chip rules are affecting everything: “We’ve all seen… the AI diffusion framework… which reshuffles a lot of cards in terms of where those chips were going to be which also meant where the data centre developments would be taking place.”

Alongside this, interest rates and global risks are also affecting returns.

Guevara said: “That’s such a hefty- that’s a billion-dollar- question.” She said demand is still strong: “We’re not using our phones less… AI is very much here to stay.”

Romansky echoed the concern: “A lot of paper projects [are] popping up everywhere, with big ambitions and big plan, but the reality is not everyone will make that race,” she concluded.