Bloomberg’s “The Close” welcomed DataBank incoming CEO Kevin Ooley for a wide-ranging video interview on the constraints shaping data center expansion across the U.S. Ooley, speaking with hosts Romaine Bostick and Mandeep Singh, offered a ground-level perspective on power, land, pre-leasing timelines, and the growing complexity of connecting new facilities to the grid.

Ooley frames the core challenge as a two-part problem: securing access to power and finding zoned, permitted land. With more than 70 data centers across 26 markets, DataBank has visibility into a wide range of communities and opportunities but also a clear view of where the bottlenecks are most acute. The company deliberately builds in and around major metro markets, typically within a 45-mile radius of its customer base, serving low-latency enterprise workloads and cloud availability zones rather than chasing remote acreage.

“We’re seeing pre-leases earlier than we ever have. Customers are trying to tie the timing of their ramp and their installations with our delivery, such that when they receive their GPUs, they can power them up.”
— Kevin Ooley, CFO and incoming CEO, DataBank

On moratoriums, Ooley takes a measured view. He supports frameworks that establish clear standards for community impact, closed-loop water systems, and responsible grid participation, seeing them as a useful filter against speculators. However, he notes that how elections play out will shape whether regulation creates lasting structure or simply delays necessary infrastructure development.

On the capital deployment question, Ooley puts the scale in plain terms: building a data center runs roughly $50 million per megawatt, with approximately 70 percent of that going into chips and construction. With 18-to-36-month build cycles and significant capacity coming online in 2027, the industry is now working to solve the supply gaps projected for 2028, 2029, and 2030.

Watch the full segment at Bloomberg.