Public opposition to data center construction is building across the United States ahead of November's midterm elections, and investor sentiment on Wall Street is now wavering as well. Concerns over astronomical capital spending, combined with calls to slow the pace of artificial intelligence buildout, are fueling caution about investing in the data center industry.
Initial public offerings by data center-related companies have been delayed or shelved one after another in recent weeks, The New York Times reported on the 21st. The newspaper said the backlash against data centers, which has become a talking point in the U.S. midterm elections and at family dinner tables, is now reaching Wall Street.
SB Energy, a subsidiary of Japan's SoftBank that has been developing the world's largest data center project in Ohio, had planned to hold its IPO this month but has pushed the offering back beyond mid-October. Investors questioned the company's target valuation of more than $50 billion, or about 68 trillion won.
SB Energy, a data center company backed by investors including Nvidia and OpenAI, has 8.8 gigawatts of data center capacity either under contract or under construction. Nvidia disclosed on the 21st that it would acquire an additional $1.5 billion, or about 2 trillion won, stake in SB Energy.
The problem is that SB Energy has yet to bring a single data center into operation. The company is projected to collect $439 billion, or about 596 trillion won, in lease payments over roughly 20 years starting in 2028, but it has generated no meaningful revenue so far.
Holtec, which is building small modular reactors targeting the AI power market, halted its IPO plans indefinitely last week. Aggreko, a power company whose main customers include AI data centers, also postponed a listing that had been set for next month.
Against that backdrop, the listing results of large data center companies now moving ahead are drawing attention. Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne, both pursuing year-end listings, have built more than 25 and 55 centers, respectively. Switch operates the world's largest data center, and Nscale, which counts Anthropic and Microsoft as customers, is pursuing an October IPO. The New York Times said the listing scorecards of these companies will serve as the first test.
