威廉·布莱尔第46届年度增长股票大会宏观亮点

William Blair Last week we attended William Blair’s 46th AnnualGrowth Stock Conference in Chicago, a three-day event atwhich the CEOs or CFOs from 274 companies (251 public,23 private) were invited to present their value proposi-tions and update investors on the state of their businesses. on the scale of building. While the quote is lengthy, we feltthe narrative very clearly captures the hype around thegrowth in this area: [W]e had a real-life scenario happen in the fourthquarter of last year where one of the hyperscal-ers came to us and said, “We understand from your of the few generalist conferences left on the Street. Com-panies presenting came from across the consumer, indus-trial, technology and communications, healthcare, energy,business services, and finance sectors of the market. Thisyear’s breakdown by market cap included 15% of thecompanies being large-cap, 35% midcap, 44% small-cap,and 8% private. As such, it represented a terrific opportu- strategy plan you are expanding geographically intothis new region. Are you still committed to do that?”We said, yes, we are. They then told us: “We’ve got ninedata campuses [and these are campuses today. they’renot data centers anymore]. They’re very large. We’vegot nine data campuses, which we’re going to do in onestate in this new geography. And we want to sit down In this special economics conference recap report, wehighlight some macro commentary that stood out tous regarding the general economy, what’s happeningwith AI, the capex expansion, the state of the consum- And our guys doing their job like they said, we’ll do allnine, not a problem. They then said, “Wait a second,we want to make sure you do those nine and you’regoing to do the other states and the other regions thatwe’re already building with you.” And we said, well, it’snot a problem. We’ll do all nine. I mean, at that time,we were actively on 27 data campuses. Okay. So, whywould we be worried about nine? We got three yearsof runway. We certainly can build capacity and ninemore, not a big deal. And so, that’s great. But, they Unsurprisingly, AI was once again the hottest topic dis-cussed among investors in the hallways, breakout rooms,and companies in their presentations. Investor sentiment ranged from a mix of awestruck to moderate skepticismregarding the extent to which AI was actually delivering So, I then get a call and our guy said, we have a prob-lem.... What do you mean we have a problem? They’renot going to do all nine? They said no, they’re doingall nine, but we can only do two. And as any CEO’sresponse, I said what the hell are you talking about?We’re going to do nine. Right? But they said, let me—let me explain to you what these are and to put intoperspective just how fast this market’s growing butalso the size and scope of these jobs and what’s hap- The Scale of Data Center Buildout Is BreathtakingThe CEO of one infrastructure building company that now specializes in data center construction told us: We’ve had a tremendous run, but we’re in the earlyinnings.We really are.… So, we’re in one of the mostexciting times I’ve ever seen. Actually, the most excitingtime I’ve ever seen in my career. As I get older and old-er, I’ve seen a lot and I don’t think people realize whatis really going on out there.We’re not talking aboutbillions of dollars of activity. We’re talking abouttrillions of dollars.And every time we sit down withour end customers and talk about our end-markets, Not only is the quantity of centers coming up, but thesize of these are growing tremendously. And it’s impor-tant to understand what drives the size…. They usedto be a 5-acre to 10-acre lot and a building, [whichwas] way too small for us to do and get excited about. William Blair data centers. Then when power started to become alittle bit of availability problem (nothing near what itwas today), they moved up to 200 acres, 300 acres, 400acres. They put multiple data centers on a campus. We agents in our operations and just massive productivity,so we’re excited about it.… And for productivity, one of our strategic priorities, sothat’s something that we’re seeing a lot of traction on,I think, as you know, just maybe to put one more pointon it, we laid out in February as a part of our guide for2026, we laid out that in operations, kind of the firstarea we focused on, we’re going to deliver $75 millionworth of productivity over the next couple of years. Andwe laid out a guide for this year where our margin ex-pansion in our long-term framework is 50 basis points Fast forward to today. Our parking lots are biggerthan 100 acres. The sites we’re starting out today arearound 1,000 acres-plus.Starting in 2027, 2028, theygo from 1,000 acres to 3,000 or 4,000 acres. What’sdriving that is the beginning of self-power genera-tion on these sites. From there, the next generation In candor, I have never said this in my career. I wishthey would push some slow down and stretch them outthere. They’re really coming so