Thor Equities' New Data Center Head Learned a Lot at Google

While at Google, where he led data center acquisitions across North America, Raj Vohra learned "we're just scratching the surface of what the world needs for compute capacity," says Vohra, now the head of data center investing for Thor Equities.

"We'll see evolutions of different product types," Vorha tells Cool Vector in a wide-ranging interview. "There's going to be a lot of demand in a lot of different forms over the foreseeable future."

Vorha speaks with Cool Vector's David Snow about what he learned at Google about data centers, and what Thor Equities' approach will be to the digital infrastructure opportunity. Among the topics discussed:

Demand for compute continues to outpace supply. From his decade at Google, Vohra learned that demand for compute capacity is only accelerating, driven by both consumer and enterprise applications. The last few years have seen demand far exceed supply, creating urgency around quality sites with available power. “For 10 years now, there's been a supply demand mismatch, but I would say in the last couple years, that demand just blew past supply," he says.

Thor Equities’ data center strategy targets growth markets. Thor, a $20 billion AUM investment firm best known for its track record in real estate, is not chasing the crowded, established hubs of Northern Virginia or Silicon Valley. Instead, its focus is on land acquisition and infrastructure development in “path of growth” markets that hyperscalers will need next. "We're focused on real estate infrastructure development for hyperscale data centers in what I would call next-up markets, in the path of growth for large hyperscale development users," Vohra says. 

Industrial real estate expertise provides a competitive edge. Thor’s long track record in industrial real estate translates well into the infrastructure demands of data centers. Teams that know how to handle utilities, municipalities, and complex site development are able to bridge into data centers faster, even as specialists are still needed. “The data center acquisition and development space is ultimately an infrastructure game," Vohra says.