How to fund the data-center boom?

How to fund the data-center boom?

From Take on Tomorrow by PwC

October 21, 2025 · 26 min · Season 4 · Episode 6

About this episode

This episode explores the financing of data centers and its impact on innovation and partnerships across industries.

Throughout this special series, we’ve been exploring what happens to business and society when people try to do things differently. But without the funding to pay for that change, real progress can stall. In this episode, we’ll look at the way projects are financed and how it’s unlocking innovation and new partnerships across industries.  Hosts Femi Oke and Lizzie O’Leary are following the money into the world of data centers—massive investments requiring trillions of dollars—to uncover how this backbone of our digital lives is built and paid for. We’ll hear from Udhay Mathialagan, Managing Partner in Brookfield’s Infrastructure Group and the CEO of their Global Data Center Group, about why the company’s focusing on the infrastructure that runs AI systems. Plus: Eric Janson, Global Private Equity and Principal Investors Leader, PwC US, helps us dig into creative financing models, the evolving role of financial services, and why capital is the quiet force reshaping entire industries.  Take on Tomorrow is brought to you by strategy+business, a PwC publication © 2025 PwC. 

People in this episode

Hosts: Femi Oke, Lizzie O’Leary

Guests: Udhay Mathialagan, Eric Janson

Topics covered

  • data centers
  • financing
  • innovation
  • partnerships
  • AI systems
  • financial services

Keywords

  • data centers
  • financing
  • innovation
  • AI
  • financial services
  • investment

Sponsors

strategy+business

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Brookfield, PwC US, strategy+business, PwC

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