Choose a data center provider by testing its site-specific power, cooling, resilience, network, and operating capabilities against your actual AI hardware, deployment date, and service needs. A headline megawatt figure or “AI-ready” label is not enough: ask for evidence that the required capacity can be delivered, commissioned, and supported on the schedule and under the conditions your workload needs.
Start with a written workload and service profile
Before requesting proposals, give every provider the same description of the deployment. AI infrastructure is an integrated system: accelerator generation, rack design, cooling, power delivery, networking, storage, and operations affect one another. Capacity and efficiency claims cannot be compared fairly unless their boundaries, dates, and operating conditions are clear.
- Workload: training, fine-tuning, inference, or a mix; expected utilization and availability requirements.
- Hardware and scale: accelerator system and generation, rack count and density, rack-level power needs, and likely expansion.
- Connectivity and data: GPU interconnect and external network requirements, storage capacity and throughput, latency needs, data location, and security constraints.
- Schedule: target deployment date, phased ramp, and dates by which additional capacity may be needed.
- Service boundary: identify who supplies and integrates servers, racks, cabling, liquid distribution, facility cooling, network, storage, monitoring, and 24/7 operations.
- Site constraints: required geography, applicable security or regulatory conditions, and any known water, climate, or permitting limits.
ASHRAE’s data center framework spans planning, commissioning, operations, and retrofit, and calls for considering project purpose, power, cooling, compute, location, impact, and scalability together. Its online guidance is a framework, not a mandatory code; applicable building, electrical, environmental, water, and permitting requirements remain specific to the jurisdiction and project.
Can the provider deliver usable power by your date?
Distinguish utility supply, total site or facility capacity, and the contracted IT load available to your deployment. A campus-level megawatt number does not establish how much power is available to your customer, where it can be delivered, or when. Ask for site-specific engineering evidence and a dated delivery commitment.
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- Request a one-line diagram or equivalent evidence showing the path from utility service through transformers, switchgear, UPS, and the customer’s rack distribution.
- Have the provider state contracted IT capacity, rack-level power limits, voltage, phasing, redundancy arrangement, and energization milestones in writing.
- Ask whether the capacity is available now, contracted but not energized, under construction, or only planned. Confirm utility coordination and any dependencies that could move the delivery date.
- Clarify how the site manages workload power variation, including large synchronized changes in AI load, and what operating or grid-interactive measures apply.
- Define remedies if power milestones slip, including whether capacity can be substituted, the contract can be adjusted, or you can exit without the affected commitment.
For scale only, NVIDIA’s GB200 DGX SuperPOD reference architecture describes one scalable unit as eight DGX GB200 rack systems with 1.2 MW of TDP. That is a product-specific reference, not a general AI facility requirement or a measure of power available at any provider’s site. ASHRAE’s Integrated Design Principles page, accessed October 4, 2026, describes AI/HPC racks ranging approximately from 120 kW to several hundred kilowatts, with megawatt-class racks anticipated near term; treat that as contextual guidance, not a universal rack specification or market census.
Will the cooling system work with your exact rack?
Do not treat “air-cooled,” “direct-to-chip,” or “liquid-ready” as interchangeable descriptions. Ask the provider and your equipment supplier to confirm the thermal design conditions for the selected server and rack, then document the boundary between facility systems and equipment systems.
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- For liquid cooling, define the facility water system (FWS) and technology cooling system (TCS) interfaces, including permitted supply and return temperatures, flow, pressure, water chemistry, and filtration.
- Identify who supplies, owns, monitors, and maintains heat exchangers, coolant distribution units (CDUs), pumps, hoses, and connections.
- Confirm leak detection, isolation, containment, alarm routing, service access, and response responsibilities. Ask what happens after a pump, CDU, or heat-rejection failure.
- Verify whether the loop and its supporting equipment will be ready by the promised date and whether the provider supports mixed air- and liquid-cooled deployments.
- For air or hybrid designs, confirm the rack’s thermal envelope, airflow path, humidity conditions, and site limits under the expected climate and load.
- Ask how dry coolers, evaporative or adiabatic modes, water restrictions, and heat-reuse systems affect operation and service commitments.
ASHRAE recommends matching cooling strategy to density and identifies technology cooling systems as relevant for purpose-built, high-density AI facilities. NVIDIA’s GB200 reference describes hybrid direct-liquid and air cooling for that architecture; it should not be assumed to describe other hardware generations.
What evidence supports resilience and the service commitment?
Assess the complete failure and maintenance paths, not just a facility tier label. Map utility feeds, transformers and switchgear, UPS, generators or alternate supply, cooling distribution, controls, and network paths. Look for shared dependencies and single points of failure, including components that appear redundant but share a control, fuel, or distribution path.
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- Ask how maintenance can be performed without interrupting the service you require, and request the design and commissioning evidence supporting that claim.
- Review generator or alternate-supply duration, fuel or energy replenishment arrangements, testing practices, spare-parts strategy, incident response, and planned-maintenance windows.
- Request recent availability history and require the provider to state the measurement boundary, period, exclusions, and whether the figure represents the facility, power, cooling, network, or end-to-end service.
- Write the SLA around a defined service: availability measurement, exclusions, notice and reporting, service credits or other remedies, chronic-failure treatment, and termination rights.
NVIDIA’s GB200 reference recommends Tier 3 design or equivalent, including concurrent maintainability and no single point of failure, and cites Uptime Tier 3 or equivalent TIA/EN design requirements for that deployment. This is vendor guidance for the named reference architecture, not evidence that a particular provider holds a certification or will meet your SLA. A design designation does not replace workload-specific contract terms.
Measure efficiency and environmental impact on comparable terms
Request the metric, reporting interval, system boundary, instrumentation, calculation method, IT load or utilization, and whether a value is a design estimate or measured operation. Where relevant, ask whether measurements are normalized for weather and how often results are reported. Without those details, two numbers with the same label may describe different operating conditions.
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| Measure | What to ask the provider to report | What it does not establish by itself |
|---|---|---|
| PUE | Facility and IT energy boundary, calculation period, IT load or utilization, instrumentation, and whether the result is measured or estimated. | Water use, carbon impact, or how much useful computing work the IT equipment delivered. |
| WUE and WUI | Method, reporting period, site conditions, water source, and whether reported water is consumption or withdrawal. | Comparable water impact across sites without accounting for climate, load, and cooling mode. |
| CUE | Calculation method, energy and carbon boundaries, and the period and operating conditions covered. | Water performance or facility energy overhead on its own. |
| ERE or ERF | Energy-reuse boundary and evidence of useful energy exported; ask how the provider calculates the stated measure. | That heat is being put to useful use merely because heat reuse is technically possible. |
| IT work capacity and utilization | How the provider defines and measures useful IT work and utilization for the relevant deployment. | Facility efficiency or environmental impact without supporting facility and resource measures. |
ASHRAE identifies PUE, WUE, WUI, CUE, DCRE, and IT work capacity/utilization among relevant data center performance measures. PUE is useful for facility energy overhead but is not a complete sustainability score. ASHRAE’s Integrated Design Principles page gives an illustrative comparison of PUE near 1.10 versus roughly 1.4 to 1.6 for traditional designs; those examples do not establish equivalent load, climate, or measurement conditions. Do not use them as a guaranteed provider outcome or a direct comparison between offers.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Check commissioning, operations, and future adaptability
Ask for an integrated commissioning and acceptance plan that covers electrical systems, cooling, IT equipment, network, controls, alarms, and workload-related power behavior. The plan should specify measurable pass/fail criteria before the deployment is committed.
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- Identify who is responsible for each test, who can witness it, how defects are recorded and corrected, when retesting occurs, and what remedy applies if acceptance is not achieved.
- Request commissioning records and the operational handoff, including alarm thresholds, escalation paths, maintenance procedures, and monitoring access.
- Review staffing and on-call coverage, preventive maintenance, change control, incident communication, and experience operating the particular liquid-cooling arrangement if applicable.
- Ask how the provider will add power, cooling, or network capacity and whether expansion or retrofit could interrupt or strand the current deployment.
Commissioning is a validation phase; operations require continuing monitoring, maintenance, and energy management. A provider should explain who owns each activity after acceptance, rather than treating commissioning as proof of ongoing service quality.
Compare providers using the same evidence and contract assumptions
Use one comparison sheet for every shortlisted site. Separate capacity that is contracted and deliverable from options, forecasts, or later phases. Weight the criteria according to the workload rather than applying a universal score: a deployment constrained by power date may prioritize delivery certainty, while one with strict latency or water limits may weight other factors more heavily.
| Comparison area | Evidence or term to record for each provider |
|---|---|
| Power and timing | Committed IT MW, rack power limits, current status, energization dates, phasing, redundancy, and expansion dates. |
| Hardware and cooling fit | Supported rack and thermal envelope, liquid-loop scope and interfaces, air/liquid compatibility, cooling readiness date, and operating responsibilities. |
| Resilience and maintenance | Power, cooling, control, and network paths; shared failure points; maintenance arrangements; test evidence; and SLA definition and remedies. |
| Network, storage, and support | Topology and paths, required throughput and latency, cross-connects, storage scope, monitoring, staffing, escalation, and operational support. |
| Efficiency and environment | Measured PUE, WUE/WUI and CUE where relevant, calculation boundaries, reporting quality, water source and restrictions, and heat-reuse evidence. |
| Commissioning and growth | Acceptance criteria, commissioning records, test and retest rights, expansion options versus commitments, and retrofit impact. |
| Location and constraints | Geography, grid constraints, climate, water availability, permitting, and data-location or security fit. |
| Total commercial commitment | Recurring and installation charges, integration, energy pass-throughs, water or environmental surcharges, support, term and indexing, taxes, exit, and decommissioning costs. |
Compare prices only against current written offers and the same assumptions about capacity, dates, service scope, energy, water, and contract term. The available reference material does not establish current prices or any named provider’s capacity, SLA, or service availability; verify those directly with each shortlisted provider and in its contract.
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