The Stakes Have Changed
Selecting the right partners to build a data center has always mattered, but in 2026, it has become one of the highest-leverage decisions investors, owners, and developers will make. The current data center build-out is one of the largest infrastructure investment cycles in modern history. Recent reporting from Bloomberg indicates that almost half of the U.S. data centers planned for 2026 are likely to face delays or cancellations driven by constraints in power infrastructure, or lack thereof, and electrical equipment supply constraints.[1] At the same time, research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows that grid interconnection timelines have more than doubled over the past two decades, now exceeding four years for many projects.[2]
In this environment, the difference between a capable build partner and the right build partner is measured in lost revenue and stranded capital. Industry analysis indicates that commissioning delays on a typical 60 MW facility can translate to roughly $14 million per month in lost revenue and related impacts.[3] For owners, investors, and general contractors, the consequences compound through subcontractor exposure, liquidated damages, and potentially damaged relationships between investors, developers, and operating partners. Partner selection is no longer a procurement exercise, rather, it is a risk management decision. Making a poor choice in a build partner will have severe ripple effects throughout the project lifecycle.
Start With the Project’s Real Constraint
The first question should not be, “Who can build this?” It should be, “What could stop this project from achieving its commercial operation date (COD)?”
For some projects, the answer is utility interconnection timing. For others, it is substation sequencing, transformer availability, cooling systems, commissioning windows, or trade labor supply. As large-scale data center campuses push toward 500 MW-plus footprints, construction schedules are extending into multi-year territory, and speed to power has overtaken connectivity as the primary driver of site selection and delivery strategy.[4] The partners you select, and how early you engage them, will determine whether those constraints are anticipated and managed or simply accepted as schedule risk.
A strong partner selection process should begin with understanding how the partner will overcome common constraints: the critical path to obtaining power, labor availability, the equipment and materials most exposed to delay, and the dependencies between owner-furnished equipment and contractor work.
The right partner is not always the largest firm or the lowest bidder, but the firm whose capabilities and expertise match the risk profile of the project. A potential partner’s experience and knowledge of industry-specific delivery challenges must be carefully evaluated to assess the likelihood of a successful partnership.
5 Characteristics That Separate Strong Partners
1. Mission-Critical Delivery Experience
Past project volume matters less than relevant project volume. A partner who has recently delivered hyperscale or high-density colocation facilities understands the sequencing between utility energization, owner-furnished equipment, white space fit-out, and integrated systems testing. That experience translates to fewer re‑sequences, fewer late design clarifications, and fewer surprises in commissioning.
Selection metrics should focus on specifics like total megawatts delivered, rack densities supported, and percentage of past projects that achieved their original COD. Evaluating the potential project team’s experience often provides more insight than the company’s industry experience.
2. Command of Long-Lead Procurement
Current market conditions have pushed lead times for medium voltage switchgear to 12 months or more in many markets. A qualified partner should arrive with a procurement strategy already in hand, including established OEM relationships, early-release packages, and contingency plans for transformers, generators, and chillers.
Investors, owners, and developers should probe deeply here. If a prospective partner cannot speak fluently about long-lead sequencing on day one, they are unlikely to catch up later. Conversely, partners who can demonstrate how they have mitigated long‑lead equipment delays on recent projects are far more likely to preserve energization dates when market conditions shift.
3. Understanding the Path to Power
Speed to power is now the defining schedule and value driver for most large data center programs. A build partner who treats utility coordination, substation delivery, and on-site generation as someone else’s problem is the wrong partner.
A strong contracting partner understands how power-on dates drive every other milestone. They engage directly with utilities, independent engineers, and equipment vendors, understand interconnection study requirements, and can help owners evaluate alternatives such as phased energization, temporary generation, or dedicated off-site infrastructure such as substations or new transmission lines. The strongest candidates can demonstrate their relationship with local power providers, their understanding of constraints, and strategies for mitigating and managing power delivery risks.
4. Controls, Reporting, and Schedule Discipline
Fast-track data center programs live or die on the strength of project controls. Robust controls must integrate schedule, cost, change, risk, and procurement rather than treating each as a separate workstream. Weak discipline surrounding project controls such as poor schedule logic, manually adjusted schedule dates, unexpected float consumption, and unexplained cost movement are early warning signs that risk is being masked rather than managed. When change orders bypass formal evaluation, risk registers go stale, or long‑lead procurement status is not tied directly to milestones, leaders lose the ability to see where the project is truly exposed or when to intervene while there is still time to recover.
Look for partners with a well-defined, proven approach to project controls and reporting. Robust schedule management, transparent and thorough risk registers, and disciplined monthly — or weekly — reporting provide the foundation to align and inform all stakeholders. Clear, candid reporting is often the earliest indicator of whether a partner will surface issues while options exist or allow problems to emerge only after the schedule can no longer be recovered.
5. Commissioning as a Discipline, Not a Checklist
Power-related issues remain the leading cause of impactful data center outages, accounting for over half of significant incidents according to Uptime Institute survey and outage analysis data.[5, 6] Many failures trace back to shortcuts undertaken during commissioning, incomplete integrated testing, or changes during construction that never made it into the commissioning plan.[7]
A credible partner treats commissioning as a core engineering workstream, staffed proportionally to a project’s complexity and integrated into the project delivery plan from conceptual planning through turnover. When they add value, they drive clarity around sequence of operations, coordinate factory and site testing across suppliers, and insist on realistic, prerequisite‑driven durations for integrated systems testing; when they under‑resource commissioning, push it to the end of the schedule, or treat it as “punch list plus start‑up,” they create hidden failure modes that later surface as outages, rework, and claims.
Plan for Governance, Not Just Procurement
The best owner-contractor relationships are not defined solely by who was selected, but by how the relationship is governed. Effective programs establish clear decision rights, interface protocols, and escalation paths before the first contract is signed, not after the first crisis.
Completing regular performance reviews, independent schedule validation, and early-warning mechanisms gives both sides a framework to course-correct while options still exist, reducing the likelihood that issues escalate into claims or relationship breakdowns.
Align the Contracts With the Real Risks
Many project issues begin with a misalignment between contract structure and delivery reality. Models designed for conventional commercial or industrial projects often assume stable design, predictable supply chains, and limited owner‑furnished scope. These assumptions frequently do not hold for large, fast‑moving data center programs with evolving artificial intelligence (AI) and technology requirements.
Before finalizing a partner, stakeholders should test whether the commercial model supports the actual risk allocation. Key questions include: Which party owns delay risk tied to utility interconnection and off-site infrastructure? How are long-lead equipment delays handled when the owner furnishes and the contractor installs? Are commissioning responsibilities clearly defined across contractors, suppliers, and independent agents? Does the contract incentivize early issue escalation and transparency, or does it encourage surfacing of issues only after recovery options are limited?
Strong contracts do not eliminate risk; they make it visible, assign it explicitly, and create the right incentives for all parties to mitigate it. Selecting strong contracting partners further increases the likelihood that risks are surfaced early, allocated to those best able to manage them, and addressed before schedule and cost outcomes are irreversibly damaged.
Sources
1 Bloomberg, “The US Data Center Boom Relies on Hard-to-Find Electrical Equipment,” April 1, 2026, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-04-01/us-data-center-boom-relies-on-hard-to-find-electrical-equipment
2 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “Queued Up: 2025 Edition — Characteristics of Power Plants Seeking Transmission Interconnection,” 2025, https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/queued-2025-edition-characteristics
3 CMIC Global, “Key Data Center Construction Trends in 2026,” 2026, https://cmicglobal.com/resources/article/data-center-construction-trends
4 CBRE, “U.S. Real Estate Market Outlook 2026: Data Centers,” 2026, https://www.cbre.com/insights/books/us-real-estate-market-outlook-2026/data-centers
5 Uptime Institute, “Annual Outages Analysis 2024,” in Global Data Center Survey 2024, https://datacenter.uptimeinstitute.com/rs/711-RIA-145/images/2024.GlobalDataCenterSurvey.Report.pdf
6Uptime Institute, “Uptime Announces Annual Outage Analysis Report 2025,” May 6, 2025, https://uptimeinstitute.com/about-ui/press-releases/uptime-announces-annual-outage-analysis-report-2025.
7Uptime Institute Journal, “Avoiding Data Center Construction Problems,” https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/avoiding-data-center-construction-problems/
© Copyright 2026. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of Ankura Consulting Group, LLC, its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals. Ankura is not a law firm and cannot provide legal advice.
