Live From PTC ’26 | Data Center Trends with datacenterHawk

The video is an episode of "Not Your Father's Data Center" hosted by Raymond Hawkins, who is joined by David Liot, CEO and founder of Data Center Hawk, and the company's global leadership team at the PTC conference in Hawaii. Data Center Hawk is a subscription-based platform providing data and analytics on supply, demand, pricing, and trends for over 115 global data center markets on a quarterly basis.

The discussion focuses on the challenges and trends in the global data center business, particularly regarding power and the impact of the AI boom, with a regional breakdown provided by the Data Center Hawk team.

Key Regional Insights on Power and Trends:

APAC (Asia-Pacific), led by Daddy Escandar:Power situations are unevenly distributed.Tier one markets like Japan, Singapore, and Australia face similar issues to the US, with power delivery timelines extending to 8–10 years or as fast as 1–2 years.Grid quality is also unequal, leading to the use of non-traditional power sources in tier two markets like Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and India.A significant project is Google's announced 5-gigawatt data center in India, which requires massive grid upgrades in the Chennai region.AI is viewed differently across the region, and many new deployments (45-50%) are being designed as "AI ready," giving the region the luxury of time to prepare before the customers arrive.Nuclear energy is not yet popular, though SMR (Small Modular Reactor) technology is being assessed in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia as a fast option for energy where grid quality is poor.Latin America (LATAM), led by Steve Sass:

Brazil is the largest market, accounting for 40-45% of the region. It is well-set up for power, with growth spreading from São Paulo and Rio to tier two markets.The region benefits from submarine cable capacity and interconnection, which draws development to coastal areas.Mexico faces power constraints, specifically transmission issues, in areas like Querétaro, with some large data center companies unable to sell space due to expected power delays of one or two years.Transmission is the biggest constraint.Private companies may charge high interconnection fees ($800–$1,000 KVA) for connecting to a substation in an industrial park.Argentina may see investments due to the discovery of the second-largest natural gas reserve in the south, potentially mirroring the growth in West Texas.Most countries in LATAM (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay) have 80-95% renewabl