In this episode of Great Business Minds, João Marques Lima speaks with Krupal Raval, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at CyrusOne, about the forces reshaping global digital infrastructure.

With a career spanning leadership roles at Digital Realty, Equinix, and now CyrusOne, Raval has witnessed - and helped shape - the industry’s evolution from post-dot-com consolidation to today’s AI-driven capital supercycle.

The conversation explores how the sector has transformed into what Raval describes as a “land of giants” - an environment where access to capital, power and long-term partnerships increasingly determines who can compete at scale.

According to Raval, the scale of change now underway is without precedent. While traditional cloud infrastructure is forecast to nearly double in capacity over the coming years, AI-driven workloads are projected to expand at multiples of that.

The implications are profound:

• Data centre design is shifting toward higher density and advanced cooling architectures.

• Capital requirements are moving from billions to trillions.

• Power strategy is becoming as critical as real estate strategy.

At CyrusOne, this has translated into a “power-first” approach - securing long-term energy partnerships and investing in net-new generation capacity to support future growth responsibly.

The episode also examines the structural shift from public to private ownership across the sector, and what that means for long-term value creation. Backed by KKR and BlackRock, CyrusOne operates with a multi-decade investment horizon - a model Raval argues is particularly well-suited to infrastructure cycles of this magnitude.

He discusses:

• Why the industry requires patient capital

• The risks of overextension amid record demand

• How to avoid “building snowflakes” in an era of rapid technological change

• The importance of maintaining operational discipline during hypergrowth

Beyond gigawatts and growth projections, Raval emphasises the importance of trust - with employees, customers and communities alike.

From energy partnerships in Texas to workforce development initiatives and local engagement programmes, the conversation highlights the delicate balance operators must strike: enabling exponential compute growth without triggering community backlash or grid instability.

As AI accelerates discovery across healthcare, materials science and climate research, Raval argues that digital infrastructure is no longer a background utility - it is becoming central to global competitiveness and societal advancement.

“In ten years,” he says, “we could see a hundred years of discovery.”

The discussion closes on leadership - the role of humility in hiring, the importance of working with people you trust, and the necessity of passion in sustaining performance through relentless growth cycles.

Quoting Steve Jobs, Raval reflects on a philosophy that has shaped his career:

“You don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do. You hire smart people so they can tell you what to do.”

In this conversation recorded at PTC Hawaii, JLL’s Kristen Vosmaer and InfraPartners' George Teodorescu break down what is really separating winners from the rest in the AI data centre boom.

Key takeaways:

Time to first token = time to revenue. The faster a data centre goes live, the faster investors see returns - making speed a core financial metric.

Power is the new battleground. Projects now live or die on energy access, with behind-the-meter generation, gas and even future nuclear options entering the mix.

Capital is getting smarter - and more involved. Investors are moving from passive funding to hands-on strategic roles across the value chain.

Off-site manufacturing is changing the game. Prefabrication cuts risk, labour pressure and delays, while improving cost certainty.

Flexibility beats longevity. The era of 15-year static data centres is over, infrastructure must be modular, upgradeable and ready for rapid AI cycles.

Partnerships are critical. No single player can deliver speed, power, funding and expertise alone.

The biggest risks ahead? Monetising AI at scale, keeping up with power demand, and earning public trust as data centres become more visible - and political.

Bottom line: In the AI era, success goes to those who can secure power, deploy fast, structure capital creatively, and turn infrastructure into revenue, quickly.

Subscribe for more insight on the future of digital infrastructure.

Bevan Slattery, Australian entrepreneur and founder of multiple telecommunications ventures, spoke at The Tech Capital the 3rd annual APAC Finance Forum in Singapore on the evolving digital infrastructure landscape in Australia and Asia.

Slattery noted the extensive rebuilding of internet connectivity over the past 12 to 24 months. “When you look at communications from the United States to Singapore, for example, or even India, they kind of realise we need new routes away from routes that are, I'd say, at risk at some level,” he said. “Really we're seeing an entire new route being built from the US to Australia and then Australia all deep water down the bottom then kind of coming back up to Singapore and India and then beyond.”

He touched on the unprecedented scale of investment in data centres and AI facilities, while stressing operational risks. “People aren't realising is that they're still data centres at the end of the day, so data's got to flow in,” he said. “From a risk standpoint… you just have to make sure that you build your infrastructure and facilities to be able to withstand and evolve as the computer evolves over 25 years. If you redo your architecture and make sure it's flexible, you've got this asset that can go for 25 years and last, you know, four generations of GPUs.”

Slattery also addressed recent disruptions to subsea cables in the Middle East, citing four recent cable breaks. “It doesn't look like sabotage. It just looks like genuine,” he said. “What our focus is on is new corridors. So we built Perthaman, the only cable… that avoided issues and challenges like that.” He revealed the company had secured terrestrial capacity from Oman through Saudi Arabia and Jordan into the Mediterranean to mitigate risk.

Discussing regulatory challenges, Slattery acknowledged the complexity of establishing new infrastructure in previously undeveloped locations. “If you keep building to the same location, regulators, local government, environment agencies… they've seen applications before and approvals are consistent. But now that we're actually needed to build these new routes that are diverse away from these other locations… we're having to go through this education process. It's hard work, but once we do that, the community sees the benefit, it'll actually be easier for the second and third person,” he said.

Looking ahead, Slattery said he was satisfied with the current state of connectivity investment. “The position we're in is such a great spot… we still own 100% of the business from a sovereign capability in Australia… the world is now realising each country needs a sovereign capability or a trusted partner. The other thing that's really helped a lot is just the amount of investment happening in data centres and AI. Connectivity's got to follow.”

Slattery also outlined his philanthropic projects, including the creation of a million square metres of tolerant reef over eight years and research on Megaptera species. “By understanding where the Megaptera go and what they're doing, we're actually having a much bigger understanding of the ecosystem… everything from small fish to birds to entirely new aggregation zones,” he said.