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These dividend stocks could catch a tailwind from data center pushback. Inside considered one of Equinix's inside operations at Equinix Information Heart in Ashburn, Virginia, on Might 9, 2024. Amanda Andrade-Rhoades | The Washington Put up | Getty Photos The backlash in opposition to synthetic intelligence knowledge facilities may show a tailwind for actual property funding trusts within the sector. Protests have sprung up nationally as hyperscalers look to construct knowledge facilities to coach and run their AI fashions. Not solely do the information facilities take up giant quantities of land, they eat monumental quantities of electrical energy and water and are noisy. The talk is barely anticipated to warmth up heading into the midterm elections. A current NBC Information ballot discovered that 69% of respondents oppose the development of AI heart facilities of their space. There are already greater than 4,700 knowledge facilities throughout the nation - a quantity anticipated to develop exponentially. PwC tasks that annual knowledge heart spending will rise to $1.8 trillion in 2050 from roughly $800 billion in 2026. Some states are stepping up with laws to limit or ban development, and a moratorium is already in place in New York. Utilizing REITs to play AI. Whereas the hyperscalers are getting all the eye, one other method to play the AI knowledge heart race is thru actual property funding trusts. They're basically landlords that construct, personal after which lease area to a number of tenants, together with Amazon, Apple and Oracle, in line with Nationwide Affiliation of Actual Property Funding Trusts, an trade group. "Amid political and group push-back, whereas new tasks may see delay, it might be a constructive for present tasks/DC [data center] REITs which have pricing energy pushed by constantly increasing compute demand," Mizuho analyst Vikram Malhotra mentioned in a Sept. 1 notice. Information heart REITs make up 13% of the entire U.S. REIT market capitalization of $1.5 trillion, Nareit mentioned. The general public REITs personal about 275 knowledge facilities in the USA - lower than 10% of the proprietor/operated and leased knowledge facilities within the nation, the group mentioned. There are three knowledge heart shares within the FTSE Nareit Fairness REITs Index: Digital Realty Belief, Equinix and Iron Mountain. Information heart REITs. | Ticker | Firm | Div yield | YTD efficiency | | DLR | Digital Realty Belief | 2.59% | 23.3% | | EQIX | Equinix | 1.99% | 36.9% | | IRM | Iron Mountain | 2.96% | 42.0% | Supply: FactSet Equinix, which not too long ago signed a take care of Nvidia, is the biggest, with a market worth of roughly $102 billion. It has a 1.99% dividend yield and has climbed about 37% 12 months up to now. Its second-quarter adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) topped expectations when Equinix reported outcomes and raised its full-year steerage in July. Digital Realty Belief, with a market cap of $71 billion, yields 2.59% and is up greater than 23% in 2026. In July, it reported adjusted FFO above analyst estimates and raised full-year steerage. Iron Mountain has a 2.96% dividend yield, has soared 42% this 12 months and sports activities a $34.7 billion market cap. Second-quarter AFFO beat expectations and Iron Mountain raised full-year steerage. Tailwind for REITs. The information heart resistance may act as a tailwind for REITS, though the story is nuanced, mentioned Wells Fargo Funding Institute analyst Amanda Martinez. On one hand, the availability/demand issue favors the REITS as a result of limiting new provide may elevate the worth of present capability, she mentioned. If new capability turns into tougher to develop, these with sizable pipelines of growth websites which are permitted with secured energy will see a relative benefit, she added. "However, allowing restrictions and moratoriums may weigh on future progress by slowing growth timelines and pushing up prices," Martinez mentioned. David Guarino, an analyst with actual property analytics agency Inexperienced Road, is bullish on Equinix and Digital Realty. "Their measurement permits them to be nimble," he mentioned. "So if there's restriction or pushback in a sure market, they have large land banks and massive growth pipelines, the place they'll pivot to different markets, and to date, it has not slowed down their progress story in any approach." Plus, their many years of expertise means they've relationships with native municipalities, he mentioned. "They've a bonus given their monitor file, their potential to execute, the place individuals need to do enterprise with them," he mentioned. "That helps them to have the ability to perhaps have a bonus over a more recent entrant which may not have that ability set." Guarino prefers Equinix over Digital Realty, though each corporations are doing "extremely properly." "As AI inference begins to speed up - that is extra of the decrease latency, real-life use circumstances from AI - that may begin to profit corporations which are extra centered on smaller tenant leasing, which are nearer to the place the inhabitants facilities are," he defined. "That is much more of Equinix's enterprise than Digital Realty's enterprise." Alex Pettee, president and director of analysis and ETFs at Hoya Capital Actual Property, can be bullish on provide and demand for knowledge heart REITs. Each Equinix and Digital Realty are in Hoya's mannequin portfolios. "Clearly, a moratorium might be dangerous if it stops considered one of your tasks," he mentioned. "However zoom out, and if zoning will get harder, energy will get tougher to safe, and communities don't desire new amenities, the information facilities which are already there turn into extra invaluable." Whereas the shares aren't low-cost in comparison with different REITS, they give the impression of being engaging in comparison with the remainder of the AI commerce, he mentioned. "You are getting double-digit earnings progress, tangible actual property and infrastructure, recurring contractual income, and a roughly 2%-3% dividend yield," Pettee mentioned.

Nairobi adds 6.4MW as icolo becomes Digital Realty. ByStaff Writer September 8, 2026 The NBO2 launch in Karen doubles the Nairobi campus, completes iColo's transition to the Digital Realty brand across two African markets John Tanui, Principal Secretary for ICT and the Digital Economy cuts the ribbon to officially open Digital Realty's 6.4MW Nairobi Two (NBO2) data centre in Karen, marking a major expansion of Kenya's data centre capacity. Digital Realty has opened the 6.4-megawatt Nairobi Two (NBO2) data centre in Karen, expanding its Nairobi campus and completing the transition of iColo, the East African operator it acquired, to the Digital Realty brand in Kenya and Mozambique. The facility is located roughly 300 metres from Nairobi One (NBO1), the carrier-neutral facility iColo opened in 2019. Together, the two sites allow customers to deploy critical workloads across separate buildings while maintaining continuity. NBO2 also provides access to more than 100 networks, two internet exchange points and a satellite teleport, offering an additional connectivity route to locations where terrestrial infrastructure is limited. "By connecting Nairobi Two with Nairobi One," said Wanja Muriithi, Country General Manager for Kenya at Digital Realty, the company has "strengthened the resilience available to customers." Muriithi said the new facility adds high-density capacity for enterprises, cloud providers, networks and digital platforms. She also said Kenya is positioned to benefit from growing demand for AI infrastructure, supported by its technology ecosystem, international connectivity, skilled workforce and renewable-heavy electricity grid. For a market where interconnection density can determine a data centre's value as much as physical capacity, the network count is a significant specification. A facility's usefulness to a bank, cloud provider or ISP depends largely on how many other networks and services it can reach without leaving the building. What the rebrand signals The transition of iColo to Digital Realty, a New York-listed company that describes itself as the world's largest cloud and carrier-neutral data centre operator, brings the Kenyan and Mozambican operations into its global network. Such acquisitions can expand what local facilities offer, including standardised contracts, cross-border capacity commitments and a single commercial relationship for customers operating across multiple markets. The Nairobi campus also has room to grow. Reporting on the site's master plan has described a three-facility development with a captive substation, potentially taking the campus beyond 20MW at full build and placing it among the region's larger single-site concentrations of data centre capacity. The reform being advertised The launch also doubled as a government showcase, with policy reform emerging as one of the event's key talking points. In its account of the event, the government attributed the investment partly to reforms aimed at making Kenya more competitive. These included the removal of local shareholding requirements for ICT investments, changes to taxes affecting digital exports, the Kenya Cloud Policy and the National AI Strategy 2025 to 2030. The removal of local ownership requirements could have implications beyond the data centre sector. Ownership thresholds have been among the more contested issues in African technology investment. In South Africa, for example, a requirement that certain licensees be 30 percent owned by historically disadvantaged groups has been cited in debates around Starlink's market entry. Kenya is now promoting a different proposition: foreign technology operators can own their Kenyan entities outright. The Digital Realty investment provides a high-profile example of the policy environment the government is seeking to promote. John Tanui, Principal Secretary for ICT and the Digital Economy, said the government was focused on creating an environment that attracts investment into the digital economy while opening opportunities for young Kenyans. The government also said it would soon issue guidelines identifying priority locations for future data centre investment. The initiative will take a multi-agency approach to factors including power availability, fibre connectivity, land, water, security, skills and investment facilitation. The list effectively reflects many of the infrastructure and operating conditions that determine where large-scale data centres can be built. The attendance at the launch underscored the commercial and diplomatic significance of the investment, which came shortly before the AmCham Business Summit. Those present included Frank Garcia, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; Susan M. Burns, US Embassy Chargé d'Affaires in Nairobi; Stephen Isaboke, Principal Secretary for Broadcasting and Telecommunications; Philip Thigo, Special Envoy on Technology; David Mugonyi, Communications Authority Director-General; John Walubengo, Deputy Data Protection Commissioner; James Turuthi, Frontier Optical Networks and KeNIC Deputy Chief Executive; Fiona Asonga, TESPOK Chief Executive; Michael Jacobs, Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Managers; and Marcel Louw, Digital Realty Managing Director for Africa. The presence of both communications and data protection regulators alongside American diplomatic representatives reflects the intersection in which major data centre investments operate, between digital sovereignty, regulation, infrastructure and foreign capital. The government also noted that the launch took place at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, where IBM established its Kenyan presence about 13 years ago. The institution was cited as an example of how university, industry and government partnerships can contribute to the development of technology ecosystems. What happens next will be more measurable: the publication of the promised guidelines on priority data centre locations, whether the Nairobi campus proceeds to its third facility and captive substation, and which cloud providers and regulated institutions take capacity in NBO2. Those indicators will ultimately show whether the additional megawatts translate into workloads and digital infrastructure that remain in Kenya.