Building the AI Economy: Faster Data Centers, Smarter Site Selection, and the Industries of the Future Host Andrew Greiner opens the Area Development Podcast with a focus on how the AI economy is already straining land, power, labor, and capital. The first segment covers a partnership between JLL (Matt Landek) and Infra Partners (Michalis Grigoratos) to compress AI data center timelines by manufacturing prefabricated facilities in parallel with site preparation, cutting roughly 13–22 months (about 48%) from hyperscale development to improve “time to first token.” They discuss power as the primary bottleneck, the shift toward placing data centers near generation in energy-rich regions (including places like West Texas), continued capital demand for data center exposure, and new risks from rapid hardware obsolescence where five-year AI leases can span a “20-year” technology change; a 100MW AI data center is described as roughly $1.2–$1.3B in real estate plus $5–$6B in GPUs. They also highlight labor constraints, including an aging trades workforce and increasing time-to-fill needs, emphasizing upskilling and retraining. The second segment features Justin McAfee (CEO/founder of WrightOne) on relocating to Cedar Park, Texas for an HQ and 18,000-square-foot manufacturing facility tied to 164 jobs and a $15M investment. McAfee describes WrightOne’s fan manufacturing and recycling model (reusing two-thirds of components up to four lifecycles), the need to launch U.S.-based recycling, a rapid and competitive site search across ~50 cities, and why Cedar Park won based on execution, alignment, and speed rather than incentive dollars; he cites community coordination (including state participation), smooth permitting, workforce draw, and workforce development such as Leander ISD’s associate-degree pathway and soldering-related skills. McAfee shares three best practices: broaden the city list beyond initial assumptions, expect more responsiveness from smaller/outskirt communities than major metros, and get professional help navigating economic development language and process. The final segment with Mark Cote (vice chair at Savills) explains identifying “industries of the future” by following federal support and private capital at the intersection of “K Street, Wall Street, and Main Street,” including the Department of Energy and the Office of Strategic Capital’s efforts to bridge the “Valley of Death” between pilot and scale. He points to areas such as geothermal, small modular nuclear, nuclear fusion (a longer, ~10-year horizon), private defense and drone technology influenced by the war in Ukraine, onsite generation amid growing power constraints, and next-generation critical minerals and industrial process innovations like graphite flakes and cleaner iron production aligned with federal priorities. 00:00 AI Economy Is Here 00:57 Race for First Token 01:31 Prefab Data Center Partnership 02:49 Building Faster in Parallel 03:34 Power Becomes the Bottleneck 05:02 Capital and Planning Risks 05:41 Hardware Cycles and Depreciation 07:10 Workforce and Skills Crunch 08:28 AI Infrastructure Takeaways 08:53 RightOne Site Selection Story 10:43 Why Cedar Park Won 12:11 Incentives and Cooling Innovation 13:38 Workforce Pipeline and Training 16:19 Expansion and Supply Chain Strategy 19:02 Site Selection Advice for Founders 20:58 Industries of the Future Framework 22:28 Energy and Defense Bets 25:07 Critical Minerals and Clean Industry 27:08 Wrap Up and Subscribe

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This episode is sponsored by TNECD