Expert View
Open letter to climate and energy transition leaders
Private: Scott Jacobs
Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder
The last three years have made for a crucible moment in the energy transition. The transition has seen incredible momentum, propelled by large capital commitments over the last decade, historic policy support and tons of steel in the ground in projects around the world generating energy from clean sources. Now, we’re entering a new year and era, and the current macro environment has its fair share of challenges. How entrepreneurs and investors respond to this...
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September 2026 Newsletter
Data center financing remains widely available, but it is getting more selective, more conditional, and more expensive. Investors and lenders are also increasingly aware that despite the diversity of projects across the country, the revenues and credit flow back to a handful of companies. The dance between developers, customers, investors and lenders increasingly resembles an Eightsome Reel: energetic, seemingly chaotic but actually highly structured and unforgiving of a missed step. The financial markets are reacting to several dynamics. Many of the power projects being built to serve that demand are first of a kind, whether in structure, scale or technology; AI demand is explosive but close to impossible to forecast; government yields are climbing, with the 10-year Treasury briefly rising to 5.34%, its highest since 2002; and hyperscaler capex, forecast to exceed $1 trillion next year, is testing the depth of debt and equity markets. Unlike the reel, whose steps have changed little in a century, the form and fundamentals of data center financing are much more fluid. As Benedict Evans put it: the most dangerous words in investing are “this time is different”; the seven most dangerous words are “people always say ‘this time is different.’ It’s always different."
Read moreAugust 2026 Newsletter
Recent reporting on equipment failures and power interruptions at several early off-grid data center projects highlights genuine technical and financial risks. Furthermore, no one has enough operating history to understand how the equipment will hold up. This suggests that things will get harder before they get easier. This is not, though, a blanket argument against on-site power. It is an argument for engineering these systems differently, for engaging with a community differently.
Read moreJuly 2026 Newsletter
The data center industry continues to surprise both in terms of how quickly the status quo can change, and how resolutely many stakeholders assume the current status quo is now fixed. Eighteen months ago, fully islanded projects were more speculative than real, hyperscalers’ decarbonization bona fides were still mostly intact, and permitting was largely a formality if you followed process. Each looked settled right up until it wasn't, and expecting stability now is a curious leap.
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