Sep 3, 2026 · 28 min
Data center backlash tests AI infrastructure stocks
Is the Data Center Investing Trend in Trouble?
The episode connects local resistance and physical constraints around data centers to the growth assumptions embedded in several AI infrastructure investments.
- 1Snowflake’s AI workloads and consumption model support growth, but valuation and margin risks remain significant.
- 2Data centers can bring jobs and development while intensifying disputes over electricity, infrastructure, and local control.
- 3A potential construction slowdown could pressure infrastructure stocks, making current investment cases more important than past purchase prices.
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The hosts connect a possible data center construction pause to the outlook for Marvell, Celestica, and Sterling Infrastructure.
The brief
Jon Quas, Lou Whiteman, and their co-hosts begin with Snowflake’s strong quarter, examining revenue growth, guidance, margins, customer spending, and the AI workloads driving demand.
Snowflake’s consumption-based model and Cocoa coding agent could extend its AI opportunity, but the hosts balance that promise against valuation and margin risks.
The conversation shifts from software to real-world bottlenecks as moratoriums and public opposition in New York and Texas challenge rapid data center construction.
Data centers may create construction activity, permanent jobs, and local development, yet those benefits compete with rising electricity demand and strained infrastructure.
A pause in construction could affect Marvell, Celestica, and Sterling Infrastructure, with power, labor, chips, equipment, capacity, and capital shaping the outlook.
The mailbag closes on a broader investing discipline: judge a losing position by its current case and price, not by the purchase price already paid.
Featuring
Mentioned
Snowflake
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