Market Memo
A rising Midwest market with a credible land-and-power story, but utility timing and infrastructure delivery will determine scalability.
Gridlocked's directional read-through on this market's ability to convert AI infrastructure demand into buildable capacity.
Overall
79
Constraint
Utility delivery timing
Saturation
Medium
Executive Summary
Columbus is emerging as a credible Midwest AI infrastructure market because it offers land availability, business climate, connectivity, and a power story that could support campus development at lower saturation than tier-one markets. The key question is whether utility delivery and infrastructure timelines can keep pace with demand.
Market Scorecard
Overall
Power
Fiber
Land
Water
Policy
Demand
Saturation
0–100 directional Gridlocked framework scores. Higher means a stronger relative buildability signal, not guaranteed investment upside. Saturation is shown as a qualitative constraint signal.
Constraint Stack
Primary constraint
Utility delivery timing
Saturation risk
Medium
A rising Midwest market with credible land and power story if delivery timelines hold.
Saturation is a constraint signal — it reflects how much friction incremental growth faces, not whether the market is good or bad on its own.
Bull Case
Land availability, Midwest connectivity, business climate, power potential, and lower saturation than tier-one markets create a credible runway for early site-control strategies.
Bear Case
Utility delivery timing, construction capacity, and less mature hyperscale ecosystem depth can limit how quickly the market scales.
Real Estate Read-Through
Columbus may reward early site control where utility commitments, infrastructure timelines, and campus-scale development plans are credible before the market fully institutionalizes.
Real Estate Market Data
H2 2025 / Midwest
Inventory
520 MW
Vacancy
3.10%
16.1 MW available
Available
16.1 MW
Under Construction
310 MW
Preleased
84.00%
of capacity under construction
Net Available Pipeline
49.6 MW
Asking Rent Midpoint
$143
$/kW/month
Power Delivery Timeline
18–24 months
Primary Constraint
Fiber
Additional metrics
Net Absorption
118.4 MW
Asking Rent Low
$135
Asking Rent High
$150
Prior Period Rent Midpoint
$138
Rent Growth
3.60%
Secondary Constraint
Permitting
Major Demand Driver
Enterprise
Key Takeaways
Market data sourced from CBRE North America Data Center Trends H2 2025 inputs entered into Gridlocked's market data workbook.
Source ID: CBRE_H2_2025_001
Key Risks
Public Market Read-Through
Public Exposure names that touch this market's constraint stack — potential beneficiaries and constrained exposures. Exposure can be positive, constrained, regulated, second-order, or mixed; this is read-through, not a buy list.
AEP
American Electric Power
American Electric Power is a regulated utility exposure to the grid delivery side of the AI infrastructure buildout. If data center and industrial load growth increase demand for transmission, distribution, and generation investment, AEP sits close to the utility infrastructure required to serve that load. The exposure is meaningful, but it is regulated and execution-heavy rather than a simple AI winner story.
ETN
Eaton
Eaton is one of the cleaner supplier-side ways to express the power bottleneck thesis, but Gridlocked treats the exposure as equipment-cycle sensitivity rather than automatic upside.
GEV
GE Vernova
GE Vernova sits close to the power infrastructure side of the AI buildout. It does not own data centers, but it provides generation, grid, and electrification solutions tied to the question of whether large-load demand can be served reliably. The exposure is meaningful because AI infrastructure ultimately needs generation capacity, grid equipment, and transmission reliability.
VRT
Vertiv
Vertiv is one of the cleaner public-market ways to express the physical data center infrastructure bottleneck. As AI workloads increase rack density and cooling intensity, the limiting factor is not just compute demand but whether facilities can deliver power, reject heat, and operate reliably. Vertiv sells into that constraint through power, thermal, integrated infrastructure, and service offerings.
PWR
Quanta Services
Quanta is a public-market way to express the grid construction side of the AI infrastructure bottleneck. If data center demand forces utilities and power markets to upgrade transmission, distribution, substations, and interconnection infrastructure, Quanta sits close to the physical work required to turn load growth into deliverable power.
Data Status
Market memo content and scores are directional Gridlocked framework inputs based on public infrastructure, utility, site-control, water, demand, and saturation indicators. They are screening signals, not investment recommendations.