Prologis chief: demand for AI and data centers will remain a growth driver for a long time

Prologis, one of the world's largest industrial real estate operators, sees AI infrastructure not as a short-term spike but as a long cycle of growth. The company's CEO Dan Letter believes that demand for data centers will continue to be supported, especially where access to electricity has already been secured.

Betting on Data Centers

For Prologis, this is an important shift in focus. The company is primarily known for warehouses and logistics platforms, but now it increasingly talks about the data center business as an independent growth driver. Letter made it clear that interest from major cloud providers is not waning: relationships with hyperscalers remain strong, and demand doesn't look like a one-off. On the contrary, management views it as a long wave that can support revenue and investments longer than many cycles in traditional real estate.

For the market, this is also a marker of the changing role of industrial real estate. Until recently, the main argument was warehouses closer to consumers and transport hubs; now increasingly it's sites that can be converted into computational infrastructure platforms. The more actively AI enters corporate processes, the higher the value of such locations. This also changes the assessment of the platforms themselves: the winner is whoever can quickly prepare a site for an energy-intensive project.

"We have a very strong balance,"

Letter described the company's position, linking it to long horizons and access to infrastructure.

Energy as a Deficit

Prologis's main argument is not just land or buildings, but the ability to secure power capacity in advance for the long term. For the AI data center market, this is critical: new computing clusters are constrained not so much by concrete as by electricity, connection, and commissioning timelines. If a developer can reserve capacity in advance, they become not just a landlord to clients, but an infrastructure partner.

That's why Letter's words about long-term energy access sound like a key signal to investors.

• Long-term access to electricity
• Strong relationships with hyperscalers
• More predictable site utilization
• Ability to grow outside the warehouse cycle
• Financial sustainability for capital-intensive projects

In this context, the phrase about a "strong" balance doesn't look like just a nice metaphor. For data centers today, cheap capital, a long planning horizon, and the ability to sustain large upfront investments matter. Companies that come late to market without energy resources have much less room to maneuver. Based on management's rhetoric, Prologis wants to occupy the position of a supplier of rare infrastructure at a time when demand for computing is only accelerating.

Logistics Under Pressure

At the same time, Prologis's core business doesn't exist in a vacuum. Letter separately spoke about global logistics and maritime shipping against the backdrop of geopolitics and associated risks for the company's clients. This means a more tense environment for international supply chains: routes are becoming more expensive, timelines may shift, and corporate customers are more cautious about expansion.

For an owner of logistics real estate, this is not a catastrophe, but a reminder that the familiar warehouse business is more dependent on global turbulence than the data center segment. Against this backdrop, optimism about the AI direction looks anything but coincidental. If logistics is subject to demand shocks and foreign policy, then computational infrastructure relies on different dynamics: growth in cloud services, model training and deployment, corporate automation, data storage and processing. Even if individual projects slow down, major players will still be looking for sites with electricity and clear connection timelines.

For Prologis, this is a chance to diversify its business without leaving its own development competence.

What This Means

The AI market is increasingly influencing not just software companies but also owners of physical infrastructure. If Prologis's assessment is correct, those who already control land, networks, and power capacity near future computing sites will win. For investors and corporate clients, this is another signal: in the age of AI, scarcity may emerge not in models, but in kilowatts. Around this infrastructure, a new layer of competition is now forming between developers and cloud giants.