Neocloud capex cycle: $60B+ Microsoft GPU commitment, Lambda 320MW - what the secondary market is absorbing

Data center infrastructure has been the best-performing real estate sub-sector for the past decade. JLL tracked $73B in global transactions in 2025, up from a prior record of $48B. Hyperscaler capex Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta combined is running $280-290B this year. The AI compute buildout is the largest infrastructure investment cycle since the interstate highway system.

And there is basically no way for an individual investor or small family office to get direct exposure to it.

The public options are REITs: Equinix, Digital Realty, Iron Mountain. They trade at significant premiums to NAV, they are correlated to broader equity markets, and their yield profiles reflect large-cap REIT pricing, not the underlying asset economics. Buying Equinix is not the same as owning a data center.

Private market deals require: investment-grade credit tenancy, minimum check sizes in the tens of millions, relationships with developers who have no reason to take small capital, and lease commitments that run 10-13 years. The capital stack for a primary-market build is institutional by design. Individual investors are structurally excluded.

What is starting to change: demand-first modular deployments at the 1-5 MW scale. The structure works differently. Off-take committed under LOI before capital is deployed. Factory-built infrastructure, 90-120 days to commissioning, $5-7M/MW construction cost vs $11-13M/MW for stick-built primary market. Multiple capital partners sharing a single deployment, with the build economics and contracted revenue split according to contribution.

That is the first structure I have seen that makes this asset class accessible below the institutional minimum. The tax treatment is favorable cost segregation studies on data center equipment typically accelerate depreciation significantly in year one.

Is anyone here tracking this space from an investment angle? Curious what access points people have actually found outside the REITs.