en.Wedoany.com Reported - S&P Global plans to acquire datacenterHawk, a data center market tracker, to strengthen its data capabilities in AI infrastructure site selection decisions. Founded in 2014, datacenterHawk continuously tracks hundreds of data center markets, collecting information on operational facilities, projects under development, pricing, available capacity, and fiber infrastructure. Its clients include developers, investors, and hyperscale cloud providers.
S&P Global, known for its financial and commodity data businesses, has expanded its technology and infrastructure research capabilities in recent years through deals such as the acquisition of 451 Research. The seller in this acquisition is Leeds Equity Partners, which gained controlling interest in datacenterHawk in 2021. The financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. Upon completion, datacenterHawk will be integrated into S&P Global Market Intelligence, with its market-level data combined with S&P's existing research on energy markets, utilities, and digital infrastructure.
Dave Ernsberger, President of S&P Global Energy, stated that AI is transforming the technology market as well as the physical infrastructure and energy systems that underpin the global economy, impacting productivity, investment, and GDP growth. He noted that bringing datacenterHawk into S&P Global's energy business will help clients make real-time decisions in the critical data center infrastructure market.
S&P Global's prior data accumulation has focused on power markets, utilities, energy infrastructure, and commodities, with relatively limited visibility into individual data center markets. AI has changed the value of such information—companies not only need to know where power is available or how electricity prices fluctuate, but also need to correlate energy data with actual construction activity in specific markets such as Northern Virginia, Phoenix, or Dallas.
For datacenterHawk, joining S&P Global means its data will gain broader distribution. The company's founder and CEO, David Liggitt, stated that the data center market has become a convergence point for AI, energy, capital investment, and sustainability, and clients need intelligence that links critical infrastructure growth to power markets, grid constraints, supply chain, and environmental considerations. By integrating data resources from 451 Research and datacenterHawk, clients can gain a more comprehensive understanding of where capacity, investment, and demand are likely to emerge.
The factors considered in data center site selection are also evolving. A few years ago, companies primarily compared costs, land availability, and tax incentives across markets. These factors remain important, but power has become a decisive condition for many projects. AI facilities consume significantly more electricity than traditional enterprise data centers, and some developers cannot break ground even after finding suitable sites until adequate power supply is secured. Infrastructure data has therefore become valuable to a broader range of organizations: developers focus on where new capacity is being built, utilities track regions with growing demand, and investors seek markets with tightening supply. Decisions across these different roles are increasingly relying on the same foundational data set.
