MetroConnect USA, organized by Inside Towers’ media partner, Capacity Media, is a unique conference that brings together digital infrastructure operators and their suppliers with investors who are interested in the space. Digital infrastructure encompasses several asset classes including towers, fiber, data centers, small cells, and edge infrastructure. This year’s conference, being held this week in Ft. Lauderdale, is the biggest in its 20-year history with over 2,300 registered attendees, according to Capacity Media.
Artificial intelligence and its near-and-long term impact on digital infrastructure deployment and investment was the most talked about topic on the first day of the conference. Indeed, Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge Group (NYSE: DBRG), delivered a keynote speech that addressed the topic head on.
Ganzi and his team have “rotated” DigitalBridge’s holdings over the past three years from a classic real estate investment trust with investments in hotels, healthcare and assisted living facilities to an alternate asset investment firm. DigitalBridge has investments in 30 portfolio companies which operate towers, fiber networks, data centers and small cells in key markets around the world. At the end of 2023, the company reported $80 billion in assets under management, all in digital infrastructure.
Ganzi highlighted that AI will be the major demand driver for digital infrastructure expansion investments for the next decade. AI requires significant computing capacity, estimated at 4-5 times today’s data center capacity, to analyze and produce results quickly from volumes of data.
All of this processing consumes huge volumes of energy. He makes the point that just 18 months ago the industry was planning for 2.3 gigawatts of power needed over the next several years. Today that consideration is now for 5 GW in the same time period and could reach 50 GW or more in the next decade.
Beyond data centers, Ganzi emphasizes the need for corresponding expansion across all digital infrastructure asset classes to deliver AI “to the edge” to fixed and mobile devices. This means more towers, fiber and small cells will be needed.
It is in data centers that AI will have the biggest impact. By example, Ganzi says that of the $15 billion in capital expenditures to be spent across all the DigitalBridge portfolio companies in 2024, $11 billion will be spent in data centers alone.
Ganzi urged investors to be prudent in deciding where to place their capital and to be patient in expecting returns. “If this were a baseball game, we’re just in the first inning!” he said.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
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