Foley & Lardner LLP is featured across media for the firm’s 2026 Data Center Development Report exploring the explosive growth within the industry.
Partner Daniel Farris, co-chair of Foley’s Data Centers and Digital Infrastructure team, spoke to Law360 for the article, “Data Center Builders, Power Suppliers Duel For Project Needs,” about the findings of Foley’s report, which surveyed a diverse mix of industry stakeholders with direct experience in data center development, energy procurement, technology delivery, or operations.
“All of these things are contingent on…everything being delivered, and then being revenue generating, so everybody can pay back down that chain,” he said when asked about growing delivery timelines for both data centers and the projects powering them. “When you have a delay because you’re competing for the same resources, you can see the domino effect that would have and how it would ripple through that whole chain.”
Commenting on the evolving industry landscape, Farris said, “This is an industry that was relatively small for a long time, the risk profiles were a lot lower, and the…life cycle really was controlled by a few players.”
“It’s a much larger and more separated industry now, and that creates a lot of this risk,” he added. “Parties that were really a single party in the past, now you might have four or five different entities, and that’s creating, I think, some of this competition.”
Speaking to the Commercial Observer, Farris commented on potential roadblocks ahead for the industry and how developers are navigating them.
“Certainly, there’s an increased political sensitivity and public opposition to data centers that’s kicked up in the last 12 to 18 months, relative to the first year or so after ChatGPT was introduced [in late 2022],” he explained. “It traditionally hasn’t been an industry that’s seen this type of opposition.”
Farris pointed to how developers are preemptively addressing public concerns, including by “finding land that is already powered by a local utility, and is zoned for industrial use, or looking for land that is zoned for an outdated use, holding a derelict asset, and won’t require a difficult permitting war.”
“There are very few folks, either consumers or corporations, who are not using data centers, despite concerns about them and fears we are bringing about Skynet,” he concluded. “I don’t really see a world where there’s less use, and so as long as there is demand for the technology, I think you’ll continue to see these assets.”
Farris addressed approaches industry stakeholders are taking to ensure renewable power availability for data centers in Westlaw Today, stating that even as tax and other incentives disappear, demand for new and cleaner energy sources is rising sharply.
“Hyperscalers and data center operators are entering into long-term contracts — like Power Purchase Agreements — directly with renewable energy developers,” he said. “These PPAs help data centers secure the power they require without long delays and sometimes difficult negotiations with incumbent utilities while also guaranteeing offtake and providing financial stability to energy projects regardless of federal policy shifts.”
“Some industry stakeholders are working with local utilities to create green tariffs to support new renewable infrastructure, and some states, like California and Texas, for example, offer their own renewable energy incentives,” he added.
In a second article from the Commercial Observer, Farris said, “There is a gold rush mentality right now around securing power. That’s a big part of why people feel there’s a bubble.”
He anticipates, “There’s going to a period in the next two to three years where power at necessary levels is going to be really hard to come by.”
Farris’s commentary also appeared in a third Commercial Observer article, Law360‘s Real Estate Authority, and Foley’s Data Center Development Report was highlighted in CleanTechnica.
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