Altes Capital and Zero Intensity announced a strategic collaboration to use standardized environmental performance data

Altes Capital and Zero Intensity today announced a strategic collaboration to support Altes' underwriting of data center infrastructure opportunities. The goal is to bring more rigorous, asset-level analysis to the environmental, operational and community factors that increasingly determine whether data center projects can be delivered, financed, and sustained over time.

The data center sector is in the middle of one of the largest technology infrastructure build-outs underway today. Goldman Sachs estimates roughly seven point six trillion dollars of cumulative AI-infrastructure capital expenditures between 2026 and 2031. At the same time, project execution is becoming more complex as power availability, permitting, and community acceptance increasingly affect development outcomes.

Data Center Watch reported that U.S. data center projects with publicly disclosed values totaling at least one hundred fifty-six billion dollars were blocked or delayed in 2025. The scale of those delays underscores a growing underwriting challenge: investors need more consistent, verifiable asset-level information to evaluate which projects are most likely to move from demand to delivery.

Under the strategic collaboration, Altes expects to evaluate the use of Zero Intensity's Protocol, or ZIP, as part of its diligence and underwriting process for relevant data center infrastructure opportunities. ZIP is designed to support asset-level evaluation of the factors that increasingly determine whether projects can be financed, insured, permitted, and sustained over time. The Protocol standardizes how environmental attributes are measured, verified, and reported at the asset level, helping market participants evaluate environmental risk factors with greater consistency through verified asset-level environmental performance data.

Jonathan Siegel of Altes Capital stated: "The next phase of data center development will depend as much on deliverability as on demand. Power access, permitting credibility, community acceptance, and long-term financeability are becoming central to underwriting. We believe more rigorous environmental-intensity analysis can help improve transparency, reduce execution risk, and support infrastructure that is more resilient, more accountable, and better aligned with the communities where it is built."

Qualifying assets may receive Zero Intensity's Clean Compute designation, reflecting satisfaction of applicable ZIP criteria. The framework can help differentiate compute infrastructure by giving market participants a clearer, more consistent basis for comparing asset-level environmental and operational performance. Clean Compute is not a government certification, a guarantee of environmental performance, or an investment recommendation, and is not a representation that an asset has zero emissions, zero water impact, or no community risk.

Data center demand is accelerating as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and digital infrastructure continue to expand. At the same time, technology companies and infrastructure owners are facing growing pressure to address electricity usage, grid reliability, water consumption, and local environmental impact. Recent Gallup polling found that seven in ten Americans oppose building AI data centers in their local communities.

Altes is focused on infrastructure opportunities where environmental intensity, power availability, community acceptance, and operating resilience can affect underwriting, execution risk, and long-term asset performance. The strategic collaboration with Zero Intensity is expected to give Altes a more rigorous asset-level framework for evaluating these risks and engaging institutional stakeholders.

David Tucker of Zero Intensity said: "Environmental performance data for this asset class has historically been fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to verify. Our goal is to change that, building a more standardized and credible framework that supports underwriting, diligence, and long-term infrastructure ownership, while laying the groundwork for markets that can reprice risk, redirect capital at scale, and create stronger incentives for operators to optimize outcomes."

The announcement comes as insurers are increasingly focused on how better environmental and operational data can inform underwriting, risk selection, and pricing for data center infrastructure. Chelley Schaper, Executive Vice President of Property and Casualty at CAC, part of the Baldwin Group, noted: "The insurance market is evolving as insurance carriers use environmental data in shifting from binary coverage decisions to dynamic premium pricing tied to measurable sustainability metrics. Businesses that can demonstrate superior performance across such metrics are increasingly being rewarded with better access to coverage in what remains a highly competitive market. Support from resources like Zero Intensity is making their data accessible and actionable, giving clients a real pricing advantage."

The strategic collaboration is expected to support a more disciplined approach to data center diligence at a time when deliverability is becoming more important to infrastructure investors and operators. Altes and Zero Intensity expect to continue engaging with institutional investors and other market participants, including insurers, seeking more rigorous approaches to data center infrastructure diligence, environmental transparency, and long-term asset quality. No specific investment product, transaction, or offering is being announced at this time.