Two SEC filings in one day from Digital Realty — Africa equity for stock, Kansas City dirt for partnership paper — and not much straight cash in either one. If you're just joining, PJM is the cautionary market for AI-era load growth: data centers running into capacity constraints, higher costs, and that slow crawl from generation in the queue to power that's actually delivered. The question now is whether interconnection changes can bring new supply online fast enough for big loads without making the region's cost and reliability strain worse. And on the same day, Carbon Direct drops a queue analysis on PJM and ERCOT. On The Data Center Daily — two REIT deals built to dodge cash, and finally a hard number for the backlog we've been screaming about. If you want to keep up with PJM speed-to-power reforms, tap follow so the next episode lands in your feed. First up: Digital Realty's latest 8-K has one transaction that changes how the company controls its African infrastructure footprint — here's the exact language from the filing.
On June 22, 2026, the company agreed to issue 3,425,031 shares of its common stock (representing a current value of approximately $644.4 million based on closing price as of June 18, 2026) to purchase approximately 16% of the interests in the company's Teraco joint venture pursuant to an existing put right exercised by certain of the joint venture's third party partners.
So, no big check here — they're handing over equity. That says a lot about how Digital Realty is managing the balance sheet while still tightening control of Teraco, which is genuinely the dominant colocation footprint on the continent. Watch the second-half 2026 close, and any regulatory or JV-level conditions in front of it. If this clears, Digital Realty's grip on Teraco tightens to 77%, and the remaining minority stake becomes the next cap-table question. Now the Kansas City filing gives us site control — and puts a real number on the land position. Here's exactly what it says.
On April 30, 2026, the operating partnership acquired approximately 1,440 acres of land for development at Astra Enterprise Park, located near Kansas City for approximately $377.6 million in cash and 517,475 common units of partnership interest in the operating partnership.
Nearly fifteen hundred acres in one transaction, with a blended cash-and-OP-unit structure — Digital Realty is locking in a serious development runway in a market that hasn't been on most people's short list. Astra Enterprise Park near Kansas City is now on the Digital Realty map. Watch for interconnection filings and utility coordination, plus any hints of anchor tenant commitments as the buildout comes into focus. Carbon Direct writes:
Data centers requiring over 10 GW of power were announced in PJM and ERCOT in just six months. Getting that power online means navigating backlogged and slow interconnection queues. This analysis maps what is in the queue across both markets, which technologies are moving and which are stalled, and what the latest policy shifts mean for achieving speed to power.
Okay, finally a number we can hold onto. More than 10 GW of data center load announced in PJM and ERCOT in six months — and Carbon Direct mapped what's actually in the queue around that demand. And it's not like the queue is empty — 300-plus gigawatts across roughly 1,500 projects. On paper, that's enough to cover data center demand through 2030. On paper. That's the trap right there. Three hundred gigawatts parked, and active projects in the load-growth zones are waiting three to four years to get connected. So PJM's speed-to-power problem just got sharper: Carbon Direct put an actual number on the bottleneck. Three to four years in the zones where demand is. The Kansas City land we just hit lives inside that math whether Digital Realty likes it or not. And here's the part that'll get fought over: renewables and storage make up 77% of PJM's active queue and 87% of ERCOT's. Gas moves through faster. After the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, monthly gas entries into ERCOT jumped 150%. So the queue is overwhelmingly clean, and the thing actually moving through is gas. Hold that next to every 'clean AI' press release this week. Have a tip, a story idea, or a correction? We'd love to hear it. Send us a note anytime at datacenterdaily at lantern podcasts dot com.
Next, we're watching Digital Realty's Teraco close. The company expects the interest purchase to close in the second half of 2026, subject to conditions and approvals.
As always, links to every story from today's briefing are in the show notes, so you can dig into anything that caught your attention.
That's The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.