Digital Realty De Soto Campus, October 2026: Plans Filed for 998,643-Square-Foot, $7.5B Data Center

Digital Realty has filed plans for a 998,643-square-foot data center in De Soto and is seeking tax-increment financing for a reported $7.5 billion campus; on October 6 the company also priced a CHF and euro debt raise.

Digital Realty's submission of planning applications for a 998,643-square-foot data center in De Soto, paired with an active pursuit of tax-increment financing for what is reported as a $7.5 billion campus and an offer of direct compensation payments to affected households, represents the most detailed public commitment the company has disclosed for that location. The parallel pursuit of planning approval, public financing, and community outreach signals that Digital Realty is treating local regulatory risk as a constraint to be actively managed — not simply assumed away — at a moment when the AI infrastructure buildout has made power access and civic consent two of the sector's most consequential bottlenecks.

The financing architecture surrounding this announcement offers important context. On October 6, Digital Realty priced two separate debt transactions: a multi-tranche Swiss-franc offering through subsidiary Digital Constellation B.V. — including CHF 225 million of 1.6803% Guaranteed Notes due 2029 and CHF 185 million of 2.0600% Guaranteed Notes due 2032, among further tranches — and, through Digital Euro Finco, LLC, €1 billion of 5.125% Guaranteed Notes due 2036 at 99.289 cents on the euro. This multi-currency raise extends Digital Realty's maturity profile across European currencies at the same time that coverage reaching Slicast in September reported the company posting a revenue beat and a constructive full-year 2026 outlook, while October coverage noted an AI client win alongside the debt activity.

The De Soto filing is one thread within a simultaneously global construction program. Construction has commenced on the 24-megawatt KIX15 data center at Digital Realty's Osaka campus; the company's second Seoul facility — development first announced in 2021 — reached structural topping-out in October. A three-building AI campus has been proposed in Kokomo, Indiana; Digital Realty has joined several peers in filing for Texas capacity; and Singapore authorities granted expansion rights to Digital Realty, Equinix, STT GDC, and Keppel. European buildout continues through the 15-megawatt ZUR4 facility in Switzerland, which broke ground in August, while AI cloud provider Blackfuel selected Digital Realty's Barcelona site for its first commercial deployment. The October launch of ServiceFabric, described as a multi-cloud AI orchestration platform, signals an intent to extract software-layer returns from this expanding physical footprint.

The financial intensity of this program is documented in Slicast's compilation of Digital Realty's SEC XBRL filings. Capital expenditure reached $3.18 billion in FY2025, a 12.3% increase from $2.83 billion in FY2024, representing a capex intensity of 52% against $6.11 billion in revenue — the highest ratio among the four data-center operators in Slicast's coverage universe, and second only to Equinix by absolute amount. The quarter ending March 31, 2026 logged $870 million, the single largest quarter in the data series extending back to 2009. At that quarterly pace, the October debt raises shift from opportunistic to necessary financing, compressing the timeline between this issuance and the next.

Risks accumulate in proportion to the ambition. Coverage from September reported that Digital Realty scaled back Kansas data-center expansion plans after a build-to-suit client withdrew — a pointed reminder that speculative development carries occupancy risk even in a demand-rich environment, and that the De Soto campus still lacks confirmed anchor tenants at the planning stage. Multiple reports flagged that the Nvidia–Digital Realty AI-factory collaboration has encountered grid-level financing constraints that additional capital alone may not resolve, a complexity that distinguishes large-scale AI campus development from conventional colocation builds. An earlier August report cited a $4 billion TIF request for a Digital Realty project near a Panasonic EV plant; whether that project and the De Soto campus are related is not established by available coverage, though the difference in reported values merits clarification. Coverage also noted that AI data-center delays have kept both Digital Realty and Equinix under investor scrutiny. On the session of September 14, DLR fell 5.0%, closing at $179.14; no available report attributes a cause to that move. As of the latest session, the stock trades at $179.02, up 2.6%.

Three concrete signals will clarify Digital Realty's near-term trajectory. First, whether De Soto's TIF application and planning approvals advance without significant delay — the community-compensation program already underway suggests that local political risk is being actively managed but has not yet been resolved. Second, whether build-to-suit or hyperscale lease commitments materialize at De Soto or Kokomo before significant capital is deployed: the September Kansas episode demonstrated how quickly speculative positions can be unwound, and a 52% capex intensity leaves limited room to carry unlet shells on the balance sheet. Third, the direction of quarterly capital expenditure through the rest of 2026 — if the record Q1 pace persists, further capital-market activity is probable before year-end, and the terms at which that capital is raised will reflect investor confidence in Digital Realty's expansion thesis more plainly than any single earnings beat or lease announcement.