Market segments
- Hyperscale (AWS, Azure, GCP, Meta, Oracle)
- Enterprise IT (Fortune 500)
- Network providers / carriers
- Cloud / SaaS providers
- Financial services low-latency
- Government / DoD
- AI/ML compute
Data Center KPIs.
Data centers are mission-critical industrial real estate housing servers for hyperscalers, enterprises, and colocation tenants. Performance is measured in PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), power per rack, lease-up rate, and tenant credit concentration. The sector is bifurcated between hyperscale build-to-suit (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, Oracle) and multi-tenant retail colocation. Power availability is the binding constraint — utility interconnect capacity drives valuation. Major REIT comparables: EQIX (Equinix), DLR (Digital Realty), AMT (American Tower — towers + data center segment), and IRM (Iron Mountain — DC segment). Hyperscale leases typically run 10-15 years with tenant-paid IT buildout under SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 compliance. Uptime Institute Tier classifications (Tier I-IV) drive customer fit. Ilora.ai ingests Master Service Agreements, SLAs, power capacity reports, and PUE measurements. Open Compute Project (OCP), 7×24 Exchange, and AFCOM are canonical industry organizations.
13 definitions · Sector: INDUSTRIAL · Used by Ilora.ai specialist AI agents
- NOI
- Total revenue minus operating expenses (excludes financing and capital costs). The primary measure of property-level profitability.
- Cap Rate
- Net Operating Income divided by current property value. Expresses unleveraged annual yield as a percentage.
- DSCR
- Net Operating Income divided by total annual debt service. Lender-required cushion measure; below 1.0 means NOI cannot cover debt.
- LTV
- Loan amount divided by property value. Lower LTV = lower lender risk.
- OER
- Operating expenses divided by gross revenue. Lower is better, but varies by property type (hotels run higher than triple-net retail).
- GRM
- Property value divided by gross annual rental income. Quick valuation shortcut; less precise than cap rate.
- IRR
- Annualized return on investment accounting for time value of money across the full hold period.
- CoC
- Pre-tax annual cash flow divided by total cash invested. Measures the cash yield, not total return.
- DCF
- Valuation method that projects future cash flows and discounts them to present value at a chosen rate.
- TTM
- A rolling sum of the most recent 12 months. Smooths seasonality for KPI comparisons.
- PUE
- Total facility power divided by IT equipment power. Lower is better — 1.0 is theoretical perfect.
- SF Yield
- NOI per rentable square foot. Comparable measure across industrial buildings of different size.
- Clear Height
- Distance from finished floor to lowest overhead obstruction. Drives storage cube and rent premium.
Net Operating Income
NOI = Revenue − Operating Expenses
Capitalization Rate
Cap Rate = NOI ÷ Property Value
Debt Service Coverage Ratio
DSCR = NOI ÷ Annual Debt Service
Loan-to-Value
LTV = Loan Amount ÷ Property Value
Operating Expense Ratio
OER = Operating Expenses ÷ Gross Revenue
Gross Rent Multiplier
GRM = Property Value ÷ Gross Annual Rent
Internal Rate of Return
Cash-on-Cash Return
CoC = Annual Cash Flow ÷ Total Cash Invested
Discounted Cash Flow
Trailing Twelve Months
Power Usage Effectiveness
PUE = Total Facility Power ÷ IT Equipment Power
Square Foot Yield
Clear Height
Sub-types
Sub-types within Data Center.
- Hyperscale (Build-to-Suit)
- 50MW+ campuses leased to single hyperscale tenant under long-term agreements.
- Multi-Tenant Retail Colocation
- Cabinet-and-cage product serving enterprises + SMBs.
- Edge Data Center
- Smaller (1-5MW) facilities near population centers for low-latency workloads.
- Wholesale Colocation
- Half-megawatt to multi-megawatt suites, mid-size enterprise tenants.
- Carrier-Neutral Interconnect Hub
- Network-dense facility (e.g. Equinix-style) where carriers cross-connect.
Amenities & features
7 amenities Ilora.ai tracks for Data Center.
- On-Site Power Substation
Dedicated utility substation with redundant feeds. Defines maximum capacity.
- Available MW capacity
- Utilization %
- Backup Generators (N+1, 2N)
Diesel generators sized for full IT load with redundancy. SLA-driver.
- Generator runtime hours
- Fuel reserve days
- UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)
Battery system bridging utility outage to generator startup.
- UPS efficiency %
- Battery health
- Cooling Plant (CRAH/CRAC, Liquid Cooling)
HVAC system maintaining server inlet temperatures. Largest non-IT energy load.
- Cooling efficiency
- Liquid cooling adoption %
- Carrier Hotel / Meet-Me Room
Cross-connect facility for network providers. Drives multi-tenant value.
- Cross-connects per cabinet
- Carrier diversity
- Physical Security (Mantraps, Biometrics)
Multi-factor physical access control for SOC 2 + compliance.
- Access incident rate
- Smart Hands / Remote Hands
On-site technician services billed hourly to tenants.
- Smart hands revenue per cabinet
Industry reference
How the data center sector operates.
Operating models
- Single-tenant build-to-suit
- Multi-tenant retail colocation operator-managed
- Wholesale colocation
- Powered shell (tenant builds out)
- Sale-leaseback
Regulatory frameworks
- SOC 2 Type II
- PCI-DSS (for tenants handling payment data)
- HIPAA (for healthcare tenants)
- ISO 27001
- Uptime Institute Tier classifications (Tier I-IV)
- FERC + utility interconnection requirements
Industry organizations
- Uptime Institute
- Open Compute Project (OCP)
- 7×24 Exchange
- AFCOM
- Data Center Coalition
- ASHRAE TC 9.9 (datacenter HVAC)
Comparable public REITs / operators
- EQIX (Equinix)
- DLR (Digital Realty)
- AMT (American Tower — towers + DC)
- COR (CoreSite — acquired)
- IRM (Iron Mountain — DC segment)
Documents Ilora.ai ingests
- Master Service Agreement (MSA) / colocation contract
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) — power + cooling
- Power capacity report (utility interconnect)
- Mechanical/electrical commissioning report
- PUE measurement report
- Tenant load profile
- Capital plan (M&E refresh)
- Carrier connectivity manifest
Industry tools (we integrate with these)
- Nlyte (DCIM)
- Sunbird DCIM
- Schneider Electric EcoStruxure IT
- Vertiv Trellis
- Modius OpenData
- PlanetScale (carrier mgmt)
- Service Now (ITSM)
- Salesforce (sales CRM)
Frequently asked
Common questions about data center.
- What is PUE in data centers and what is a good PUE?
- PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) is total facility power divided by IT equipment power. A perfect PUE is 1.0 (theoretical — all power used by IT). Modern hyperscale facilities achieve 1.10-1.20; legacy enterprise data centers run 1.5-2.0. PUE is the industry-standard energy efficiency metric, governed by The Green Grid and ASHRAE.
- What are the differences between hyperscale and colocation data centers?
- Hyperscale data centers are large (50MW+) build-to-suit facilities leased to a single cloud provider (AWS, Azure, GCP, Meta, Oracle) on long-term agreements; the operator builds the shell and core, tenant builds out IT. Colocation data centers are multi-tenant facilities where the operator provides power, cooling, and network connectivity, and tenants lease cabinets, cages, or suites for their own equipment.
- How is data center value benchmarked?
- Data centers are valued on per-MW (megawatt) basis rather than per-square-foot. Public REITs (EQIX, DLR) trade at premiums driven by power capacity, location (network density, low-cost power), tenant credit (hyperscale vs enterprise), and lease structure (long-term escalating). Ilora.ai benchmarks against EQIX/DLR public filings normalized for comparable power scale and tenant mix.