America’s warehouse supply is colliding head-on with the AI surge, Ross Perot Jr. warns. The Hillwood chairman, son of former presidential candidate Ross Perot, said the US now has only 15 to 20 empty warehouses of at least 1 million square feet that can handle AI data center gear, down from a more typical 50, reports Bloomberg, via Quartz. In North Texas, where Hillwood is developing its AllianceTexas Data Center Campus, Perot counts just one.
A JLL report backs up the squeeze: Vacancy in these mega Class A facilities fell to 5.4% in the third quarter, down from 9.5% the previous year, even as 317 million square feet are under construction. Data center building is running at roughly $85 billion a year. Perot likened the sudden political backlash over their environmental impact to the fight over fracking, arguing that cities should weigh the hefty tax revenue they bring. “They can generate a huge amount of revenue for the city and the state, if they are done right and get the neighbors involved,” Perot said earlier this month, per the Waco Tribune-Herald.