Data Centers & Neoclouds: How much is a megawatt worth?: US Communications Infrastructure & Global Digital Assets

Research evidence excerpt

Data Centers & Neoclouds: How much is a megawatt worth?: US Communications Infrastructure & Global Digital Assets

23 June 2026

US Communications Infrastructure & Global Digital Assets

Data Centers & Neoclouds: How much is a megawatt worth?

Almost every time a splashy GPU cloud or colocation contract hits, we get questions on Madison Rezaei

+1 917 344 8622 whether that is a “good deal”. Today, we look at the $/MW of the public data center and

madison.rezaei@bernsteinsg.com neocloud companies, in addition to benchmarking the publicly announced deals with other

private providers. We continue to prefer the colo model to the neocloud model, but can

Gautam Chhugani appreciate that some neocloud contracts are quite attractive, particularly when the neocloud

+91 226 842 1416

gautam.chhugani@bernsteinsg.com owns its own real estate.

Nancy Wu Revenue/MW is a frequently assessed metric for both colo and cloud deals (not always

+1 917 344 8545 rightly so). It can vary dramatically by business model, location of capacity, time to service,

nancy.wu@bernsteinsg.com contract duration, and size of deal. We’ve seen ranges from <$1M to $55M/MW.

Generally, neocloud models look attractive on a revenue basis with very high $/MW, but

Mahika Sapra when you layer in opex, actual performance varies. +91 226 842 1408

mahika.sapra@bernsteinsg.com

Colocation model: landlord-style REITs sell powered capacity on long-term leases - either

Sanskar Chindalia on more of a retail or wholesale basis. They serve a broad base: enterprise, hyperscaler,

+91 226 842 1445 and sometimes neocloud customers, anchoring pricing and utilization. Increasingly, we

sanskar.chindalia@bernsteinsg.com

see emerging AI infra providers (WULF, CIFR) playing with this model. The highest revenue