Four deals between 5 and 50 MW got done this week, in four states, and in every one of them the person who owns the building is no longer the person who owns the chips. A neocloud is prepaying a South Carolina landlord's construction budget. A Georgia landlord sold its GPUs to its own customer and kept the shell. A Minneapolis operator converted a 2014 lease into fee simple at a price its landlord's appraiser would not have signed. And a Nasdaq microcap is putting inference racks on cell towers under a structure built so equipment debt can never touch the dirt. The silicon and the real estate are splitting onto different balance sheets, and the tenant is becoming the equity.

The comps that fell out: $2.2 million per critical-IT megawatt per year for 12-year colo in Spartanburg County; $1.82 million to $2.22 million per megawatt-year for five-year hosting in Columbus, Georgia; $1.96 million per megawatt and $112 a foot for a 57 W/sf carrier hotel in Eagan; and, from the one oversized deal I let in as a benchmark, $780,000 per megawatt-year for triple-net powered shell in West Texas. Hold those four numbers next to each other. The spread between the first and the last is the price of the fit-out and the operations layer, and it is what everyone below is actually selling.

Nebius Prepays the Build: 50 MW at $2.2 Million a Megawatt-Year, and the Landlord's Equity Is the Tenant's Deposit

AIB Data Centers, the NYSE American listing formerly known as BlockchAIn Digital Infrastructure, disclosed on September 30 that a subsidiary signed a Master Colocation Services Agreement with Nebius for 50 MW of critical IT at CLT-01, its campus in Moore, South Carolina, in unincorporated Spartanburg County about eight miles southwest of downtown Spartanburg and roughly 75 miles from the Charlotte it is named after. The term is 12 years from delivery of the first hall, with two five-year renewals at Nebius's election. Delivery is two 25 MW halls, the first about ten months after utility service begins and the second about fourteen; the 15-year, 65 MW Electric Service Agreement that feeds the site was scheduled to start October 1, which puts the halls at roughly August and December 2027. AIB is careful to say the 50 and the 65 are not additive. The site is a 40 MW bitcoin-hosting shed that was de-energized June 5 for conversion, and the power comes off existing onsite 34.5 kV with no significant upgrades.

The number that matters is in the investor deck AIB furnished with the 8-K. The company puts the initial-term contract value at $1.32 billion and does the arithmetic for you: $1.32 billion over 12 years over 50 MW is $2.2 million per critical-IT megawatt per year. AIB then publishes the peer band it wants to be graded against, with WhiteFiber and Nscale at $2.16 million, Host Digital at $1.94 million, and Applied Digital and CoreWeave at $1.87 million. Nobody in this market volunteers a comp table unless they are at the top of it, and now every landlord under 100 MW will be quoted that table back by the next neocloud that walks in.

The capital stack is the other half of the story. AIB's illustrative budget is about $800 million, or $16 million per megawatt: $560 million of construction debt, $140 million of preferred, and $100 million of common equity that the deck says is funded with Nebius's prepayments, which sit in escrow and release against construction milestones and SLAs, backed by a Nebius Group parent guaranty. In other words, the landlord's common equity is the tenant's deposit. As of the filing date none of the debt or preferred had been arranged and full construction design had just gone in for permits, so this is a signed lease and a financing plan, not a financed project. The escalator is not in the filing; secondary press has floated 3 percent or CPI, and I am not printing that until a document does.

Deal specs. Sponsor: AIB Data Centers (landlord); Nebius Inc. (tenant), Nebius Group N.V. parent guaranty · Site: CLT-01, Moore, SC, unincorporated Spartanburg County, ~8 mi SW of downtown Spartanburg, ~75 mi SW of Charlotte · Footprint: n/d (converted 40 MW bitcoin-hosting shell) · Load: 50 MW critical IT contracted on a 65 MW, 15-yr ESA (density n/d, no sf disclosed) · Lease: Master Colocation Services Agreement, 12-yr initial from first-hall delivery, two 5-yr renewals, escalator n/d; ~$2.2M/MW-yr implied; prepayments in escrow with parent guaranty; Nasdaq-listed neocloud credit · Deal value: ~$1.32B initial term; ~$800M illustrative build (~$16M/MW) · Source: AIB 8-K investor deck, DCD.

Duos Sells the Servers for $42.9 Million and Keeps the Building

Duos Technologies closed on September 30 the sale of 100 percent of Duos Edge AI GPUaaS, LLC to Axe Compute, the Nasdaq-listed neocloud that was already its largest customer. The SPV held 288 Supermicro B300 servers, 2,304 GPUs, racked at Duos's Columbus, Georgia campus. The consideration is two pieces: Axe repaid the SPV's roughly $87.8 million of asset-backed debt at closing, and Axe owes Duos $715,000 a month for 60 months, $42.9 million in total, with the balance accelerating at the earlier of 12 months or any financing Axe raises against the cluster. The roughly $98.1 million GPU equipment facility and its covenants leave Duos's balance sheet with it.

What Duos keeps is the real estate and the power. It still owns and operates the Columbus facility, now leases GPU capacity back from Axe under a capacity-supply arrangement, and the end-customer agreement with an undisclosed investment-grade hyperscaler was extended from three years to five, running through 2031 with renewals. Axe put its side of the arrangement at about $364.6 million of revenue over the term, with Duos covering colocation and energy for the full five years. Duos says it will now put capital exclusively into 10 to 30 MW modular colocation sites, and it has two of its own rates to underwrite them against: the July 10 MW, $111 million, five-year hyperscaler agreement works out to about $2.22 million per megawatt-year, and the August 55 MW, $500 million-plus, five-year order from Axe to about $1.82 million.

The building is worth a look because it is the kind of asset this newsletter exists for. 8 Corporate Ridge Parkway is a 104,778 sf former TSYS call center on 13.66 acres in Corporate Ridge Industrial Park, inside Columbus's consolidated city-county limits about six miles northeast of downtown, per the county record. Ten MW of critical IT has been in revenue since August; Duos says it reaches 20 MW by the end of Q4. Twenty megawatts across 104,778 sf is about 191 W/sf on a whole-building basis, which for a call-center conversion is respectable and for a B300 cluster is a reminder that the data hall is a fraction of the footprint.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Duos Technologies (landlord, seller of GPU SPV); Axe Compute (buyer, Nasdaq neocloud); undisclosed investment-grade hyperscaler end customer · Site: 8 Corporate Ridge Pkwy, Columbus, GA, within consolidated city-county limits, ~6 mi NE of downtown Columbus · Footprint: 104.8 ksf single-story on 13.66 acres · Load: 10 MW critical IT operating, 20 MW by Q4 2026 (~191 W/sf whole-building at 20 MW; ~95 W/sf at 10 MW) · Lease: GPU SPV equity sale, ~$87.8M debt repaid plus $715K/mo × 60; landlord retains facility; end-customer term extended to 5 yrs through 2031 with renewals; on-site colo comps $2.22M/MW-yr (10 MW, 5-yr) and $1.82M/MW-yr (55 MW Axe order) · Deal value: ~$130.7M total consideration to the SPV ($42.9M deferred to Duos) · Source: Duos release, 8-K.

$9.81 Million for 5 MW and 21 Carriers: DataBank Exercises a 2014 Option at $112 a Foot

Mapletree Industrial Trust agreed to sell 3255 Neil Armstrong Boulevard in Eagan, Minnesota to DataBank Properties, LLC for $9.81 million in cash, closing in Q4. DataBank has been in the building since 2014, opened it as MSP2 in 2015 with 5 MW, and runs it as the Twin Cities' second carrier hotel with 21 carriers on the meet-me floor; it is one of four DataBank sites in the metro. The price was not negotiated. DataBank gave notice under a purchase option in a lease dated March 18, 2014, and the number came out of the pricing mechanism written into that lease, three years before the lease would have expired in September 2029.

Mapletree's SGX announcement is the useful document. The building is a single-story 87,402 sf box completed in 1998 on 343,253 sf of freehold land, call it 7.9 acres. Mapletree paid $9.0 million for it in July 2021 as part of a 29-asset US portfolio from Sila Realty, which had paid $5.8 million in 2015. Cushman and Wakefield valued it at $10.9 million as of March 31 on an income-capitalization basis. So the option price is a 9 percent premium to Mapletree's basis and a 10 percent discount to the appraisal, and DataBank just bought back its own building for $1.96 million per megawatt and $112 a foot. Five megawatts over 87,402 sf is 57 W/sf, which is what 2015 looked like. Set that next to AIB's $2.2 million per megawatt per year in rent and the gap between legacy interconnection real estate and new AI colo is roughly one year of the latter's rent buying the former outright.

The lesson for anyone holding a 2010s colo lease with an option in it: the option is now the most valuable clause in the document, and the landlord's appraiser knows it.

Deal specs. Sponsor: DataBank Properties, LLC (buyer, owner-occupier; DigitalBridge/Swiss Life-backed); Mapletree Industrial Trust (seller) · Site: 3255 Neil Armstrong Blvd, Eagan, MN, within Eagan city limits, ~12 mi S of downtown Minneapolis, ~8 mi SE of MSP · Footprint: 87.4 ksf single-story (1998) on 343,253 sf (~7.9 acres) freehold · Load: 5 MW (~57 W/sf) · Lease: Acquisition via lease purchase option (lease dated March 18, 2014, expiry Sept 2029); $9.81M cash, 3% deposit, close Q4 2026; $1.96M/MW, $112/sf; 9% above seller's 2021 basis, 10% below $10.9M C&W appraisal · Deal value: $9.81M · Source: MIT SGX announcement, DataBank.

An 11 MW Inference JV Buys Six Buildings on Five Acres in High Point, Then Bolts GPUs Onto SBA and Tillman Towers

Forum Markets, a Nasdaq microcap with about 13.2 million shares outstanding, announced October 5 the formation of Forum Edge AI LLC, a 51/49 joint venture with Dallas-based Edge Node, to own inference compute at sites that already have power and permits. The initial portfolio is three pieces. One, a signed purchase-and-sale agreement for a six-building, five-acre campus inside High Point, North Carolina, with 9 MW of live utility power, wholly owned by the JV, with about 6 MW of GPUs to energize in Q1 2027 and more as cooling upgrades land. Two, Edge Node's existing Dallas facility, which got its certificate of occupancy for data-center use July 1, running about 2 MW today and stepping to about 4 MW at the meter by early 2027; there the JV owns the transformer capacity and the equipment and Edge Node keeps the real estate. Three, an initial 1 to 2 MW deployment on a Texas tower site under separate agreements with SBA Communications and Tillman Infrastructure, JV-owned equipment paying a monthly fee to the tower owner, sized to fit the existing ground lease so no new zoning or power is required.

The structure is more interesting than the megawatts. Every site sits in its own SPV with no cross-collateralization, and wherever there is real property the land and the compute are held in separate entities so equipment debt never encumbers the dirt. Compute capex is funded by customer deposits plus matched-term equipment financing, with no equity issued for the initial deployment. Forum and Edge Node swap 9.95 percent stakes, about 1.46 million Forum shares, contingent on power and financing milestones. The offtakers are described as large, high-credit-quality counterparties on multi-year terms covering all initial capacity, and none are named; DCD notes Edge Node was founded in 2025 and has yet to launch a service. Forum is guiding $125 million to $175 million of consolidated 2027 revenue off roughly 11 energized megawatts. That is a flag, not a comp; I would not underwrite a tower node off it. But it is the first disclosed inference deal with two named tower owners on the other side of the ground lease, and the land-and-equipment split is the template lenders have been asking small operators for.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Forum Markets (51%, manager); Edge Node AI (49%, operator); offtakers undisclosed; tower landlords SBA Communications and Tillman Infrastructure · Site: High Point, NC (within city limits, parcel n/d); Dallas, TX (address n/d); one Texas tower site · Footprint: High Point 6 buildings on 5 acres, sf n/d; Dallas n/d · Load: ~11 MW energized across sites: 9 MW live utility at High Point (6 MW GPUs phase 1), 4 MW at the meter in Dallas (2 MW JV), 1–2 MW tower node (density n/d) · Lease: Fee acquisition under PSA (price n/d) at High Point; equipment-only JV interest in Dallas; tower equipment license with monthly fee; per-site SPVs, land and compute in separate entities; capex from customer deposits plus matched-term equipment debt; offtake multi-year, counterparties n/d · Deal value: n/d (2027 revenue guidance $125–175M) · Source: Forum Markets release, DCD.

The Benchmark: $780,000 a Megawatt-Year for Powered Shell, Triple-Net, in Ward County

This one is 234 MW and in Texas, which is two strikes against it in this newsletter. It makes the issue because it is the only disclosed triple-net powered-shell rent on an AI conversion this year, and every smaller shell deal is going to be priced off it. Nscale said October 1 that its Ward County site, which it describes as an empty steel shell nine months earlier, is live and delivering GPUs. The landlord is Ionic Digital, and Ionic's prospectus and September 10-Q lay out the lease: 126 months, triple-net, about 50 acres and 234 MW of energy capacity, rent commencing August 1, 2026 and ramping over 18 months to a fixed $182.5 million a year, 3 percent annual increases starting after year five, one ten-year renewal, a right of first refusal on additional power, and an obligation on Nscale to lease a further 89 MW at the same rate, which would take the run-rate to $250.5 million. Contracted revenue is about $1.9 billion, or $2.6 billion with the 89 MW. Nscale calls the site roughly 200 MW of IT and closed up to $1.85 billion of delayed-draw term loans against it August 31; Microsoft holds an option through Nscale on additional power from the second half of 2027.

$182.5 million over 234 MW is $780,000 per megawatt per year, or about $65 per kilowatt per month, for land, existing buildings, and the interconnect, with the tenant doing the fit-out. Turnkey colo this week printed at $1.82 million to $2.2 million. The difference, call it $1.0 million to $1.4 million per megawatt-year, is what the shell, the chillers, the switchgear, and the people who run them are worth to a neocloud in a hurry. That is the margin Duos is reorganizing its whole company to capture at 10 to 30 MW, and it is what AIB is charging Nebius for in Spartanburg County.

Deal specs. Sponsor: Ionic Digital (landlord); Nscale (tenant, private neocloud, Microsoft option behind it) · Site: Ward County, TX, parcel n/d · Footprint: ~50 acres, existing buildings, sf n/d · Load: 234 MW energy capacity per landlord, ~200 MW IT per tenant (density n/d) · Lease: 126-month NNN powered shell, $182.5M/yr fixed at 234 MW after 18-month ramp (~$780K/MW-yr, ~$65/kW-mo), 3% annual after yr 5, one 10-yr renewal, ROFR on added power, 89 MW expansion obligation at same rate · Deal value: ~$1.9B contracted, ~$2.6B with expansion · Source: Colocation Scout summary of Ionic 424B4 and 10-Q.

What to Watch Next Week

October 7, 5:00 p.m. ET: Applied Digital fiscal Q1 call. First real read on Polaris Forge 1 after the 75 MW Ellendale ready-for-service add, and the place to listen for any dollars-per-megawatt on the Delta Forge leases. Applied Digital is on AIB's comp table at $1.87 million; whether that number moves is the question.

October 12: Cheyenne City Council final vote on Orchard Hills. A 162-acre annexation and ag-to-light-industrial rezoning for Trammell Crow next to Meta's campus, over a unanimous Planning Commission denial. If it passes, it is a comp for how much a council will overrule its own staff for a hyperscaler-adjacent parcel.

October 21: Suffolk, Virginia City Council votes on a Planning Commission 8-0 recommendation to prohibit data centers as a primary use in every zoning district, closing the warehouse loophole. Hampton Roads has been one of the few Virginia secondary markets still entitling.

October 27: Glendale, Arizona decides Project Eagle, a 160-acre annexation for three data centers and a gas plant near Luke Air Force Base. Same day, Sioux County, Iowa holds third reading of its data center standards and Hagerstown, Maryland hears the Martin Farm annexation.

October 31: Fermi and TensorWave's extended closing date on the 222 MW Project Matador lease, with an investment-grade guaranty still being negotiated. A second extension would say something about what guarantors are charging this quarter.

Rolling: AIB CLT-01. Confirmation that ESA service began October 1, permit issuance, and whether the $560 million of construction debt and $140 million of preferred actually get arranged. The lease is signed. The project is not yet financed.

Disclaimer: Edge Cases is Barrio Energy's deal-flow product. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation to transact, or a substitute for your own diligence. Specs are sourced from public filings, press, and reporting; verify before you wire anything.