7x24 Exchange's Michael Siteman on Power, Politics, and the New Logic of Data Center Development

In this episode of the Data Center Frontier Show, DCF Editor-in-Chief Matt Vincent speaks with Michael Siteman, President of Prodigious Proclivities and a long-time leader and board member within 7x24 Exchange International, about how data center development is being reshaped by AI, power scarcity, network strategy, and community resistance.

Siteman explains how site selection has evolved from a traditional real estate exercise into a far more complex infrastructure challenge.

“The business used to be a pure real estate play,” Siteman says. “Now it’s a systems engineering problem. It’s power, network topology, the real estate itself, and political risk.”

The conversation explores the growing dominance of power in development strategy, including the rapid rise of behind-the-meter generation as utilities struggle to keep pace with demand. Siteman notes that attitudes toward onsite generation have shifted dramatically in just the past few months.

“Six months ago, people would say, ‘If you don’t have grid interconnection, we’re not interested,’” he says. “In the last 30 days, it’s completely different.”

Vincent and Siteman also discuss the balance between network access and power access, the risks of pre-leasing capacity before buildings are completed, and the growing importance of local politics and government relations in getting projects approved.

The episode closes with a look at the widening gap between traditional hyperscale facilities and AI factories, the question of whether AI infrastructure is heading toward a bubble, and the industry’s urgent workforce shortage.

“Data centers don’t run themselves,” Siteman says. “We simply don’t have enough people to build and operate the infrastructure that’s coming.”

This is a grounded, field-level conversation about what is really driving data center development in the AI era, and what the industry will need to solve next.