What We’re Seeing on the Ground
🧮 Power, Not Land, Is Killing Sites
Across FLAP-D and the Nordics, the real constraint isn’t hectares, it’s megavolt-amperes. We’re seeing multiple campus concepts pushed back or quietly reshaped because TSOs and DSOs can’t commit the MVA within a realistic window. Land banking without a credible power path is starting to look like wishful thinking rather than strategy.
🧊 Liquid Cooling Moves From “Future Topic” to Design Risk
On active builds, owners are no longer asking if they’ll need liquid — they’re asking how fast they can pivot from air-only to hybrid or direct-to-chip without redesigning the whole plant. Design teams that can’t explain their cooling roadmap (including pumps, CDUs, and supply chain risk) are getting downgraded fast.
📜 Regulators Are Now Part of the Site-Selection Conversation
The EU’s scrutiny of US cloud players under the DMA, combined with recurring outage stories, is forcing more questions in RFPs around sovereignty, concentration risk, and cloud dependency. The smart operators are modelling: “If this region or provider is constrained, what happens to our latency, redundancy, and cost stack?”
🧠 Seeing the same on site?
👤 Want a PM like this on your team?
💥 Field Reality Check
Talent Ops Corner – Should Recruiters Be More Like Salespeople?
In data center delivery, talent is pipeline.
But here’s the real question: is great recruitment a volume game, or a relationship game?
We see both camps on almost every project.
🤔 The Recruiter’s Dilemma
Are strong recruiters more like SDRs… or more like matchmakers?
Do you win by hitting 200 touchpoints a week?
Or by running a small, trusted bench of people who’ll actually pick up the phone when a PM calls?
📈 Argument 1: Recruitment Is a Numbers Game
The sales logic is simple:
More outreach ⇒ more chances to hit the perfect PM / Cx / QA/QC fit
Faster placements ⇒ less downtime on site and fewer “ghost” positions
Sequences, follow-ups, ATS hygiene – all straight out of the sales playbook
💬 Question for you:
On your projects, how many touchpoints does it usually take before a strong candidate actually engages?
🤝 Argument 2: Recruitment Is a Relationship Business
The delivery-side logic:
Trust is the real bottleneck – not CV volume
The best people often arrive via referrals and passive talent, not job boards
Long-term relationships (PMs, Cx leads, supervisors) drive retention and lower re-hiring costs
💬 Trade-off:
Would you rather have 10 quick placements this quarter – or 5 hires you’d happily re-hire on the next project?
⚖️ Where It Lands in Critical Infrastructure: The Hybrid
In hyperscale and critical environments, the answer is rarely either/or.
What works in the field:
Targeted volume – consistent outbound, but into a curated talent pool (not the whole of LinkedIn)
Structured nurturing – keeping bench talent warm between projects so they’re truly deployable, not theoretical
Sales discipline with delivery context – qualifying client needs like a sales lead, but with on-the-ground project reality in mind
💬 We’re curious:
What’s one sales tactic (cadence, CRM discipline, pipeline review, etc.) you think recruiters should steal and actually use?
📊 Quick Poll (For PMs, Cx Leads & Talent Folks)
What’s the best recruitment strategy for your projects right now?
We’ll share anonymised results in a future issue of Critical Load.
Need recruiters who can work both sides — numbers and relationships — without carpet-bombing your inbox with CVs?
Reply “Bench” and we’ll share how we run our talent engine for PMs and Cx leads across FLAP-D & Nordics.
Spotlight: Deepgram
Voice AI: Get the Proof. Avoid the Hype.
Deepgram interviewed 400 senior leaders on voice AI adoption: 97% already use it, 84% will increase budgets, yet only 21% are very satisfied with legacy agents. See where enterprises deploy human-like voice AI agents - customer service, task automation, order capture. Benchmark your roadmap against $100M peers for 2026 priorities.
Bench Index – Indicative Talent Signals (EU, Nov 2025)
📊 Indicative Day-Rate Bands (ex VAT)
• Project Manager: €550 – €800 / day
• Commissioning Manager: €550 – €900 / day
• QA/QC Manager: €650 – €900 / day
Rates are aggregated market observations from the snapshot period and are not recommendations or commitments; individual engagements vary.
📈 Availability Signals (Past 30 Days)
Germany & Netherlands – Still tight. Cx and senior PM availability is thin; anything AI/HPC or retrofit-heavy is hard to staff without long lead times.
Ireland, Belgium, France – Relatively balanced. You can still find PM / Cx capacity, but the best people are booked on long term projects.
Spain & Portugal – Improving pipeline. Strong QA/QC and CSA supervision showing up, especially on phased builds and retrofit scopes.
CEE (Poland / Czechia ) – Bench is growing, but RTW + strong English is still the choke point at senior levels.
Industry Headlines – Nov 17–23
🌐 Brookfield Unveils $100bn AI Infrastructure Fund (Radiant Cloud)
Brookfield launches a $100bn AI infrastructure program with Nvidia and Kuwait Investment Authority as cornerstone partners, including the new “Radiant” cloud provider to backstop giga-scale AI campuses. Datacenter Dynami🏛️ EU Probes US Hyperscalers Under the DMA
The European Commission and national watchdogs are examining whether AWS, Azure and others should face Digital Markets Act restrictions after a major October outage – with potential implications for cloud concentration and sovereignty strategies. Datacenter Dynamics🤝 OpenAI + Foxconn Team Up on AI Data Center Design
OpenAI and Foxconn announce a partnership to optimize AI data center design, with Foxconn shifting more manufacturing to the US and focusing on multiple generations of AI hardware for scaled DC deployments. Datacenter Dynamics+1⚡ Google + Westinghouse Use AI to Fast-Track Nuclear Reactors
Google Cloud and Westinghouse say AI-optimized planning could cut construction time and cost for ten AP1000 reactors – a potential future power backbone for energy-hungry AI data centers. DataCenterKnowledge📉 SC25 Keynote: AI Will Supercharge Humans – and Stress Data Centers
At the SC25 supercomputing conference, the opening keynote warned of an “AI-defined era” where power demand, grid limits, and data center capacity hit a cliff unless new energy and infrastructure models materialise fast. DataCenterKnowledge💧 From Air to Liquid at Scale (DCF QuickChat)
Data Center Frontier talks to Moog’s Axel Bokiba about scaling liquid cooling for hyperscale, and why pumps and CDUs have become “first-order constraints” in AI data center design and supply chains. datacenterfrontier.comScope Creep That Pays: A Real Change Order Trigger📘 (Linked to ISO 9001:8.5 – Control of Production and Service Provision)
Why it matters
Most projects don’t explode on Day 1. They bleed out slowly via “just one more” room, rack, or report.
If you’re approving scope by email threads and hallway conversations, you’ll end up delivering extra work at zero margin.What works
You need a hard trigger where “nice-to-haves” become billable change – and it has to be visible to PMs, not just buried in legalese.Clause to copy or adapt:
“Any instruction, request, or change that:adds rooms, equipment, or systems beyond the approved IFC scope; or
alters agreed sequencing, working hours, or access arrangements; or
introduces additional testing, reporting, or documentation not listed in the Contract or ITPs
will be treated as a Change.
The Contractor shall notify the Employer’s Representative in writing within 3 Business Days of becoming aware of such Change.
The Employer’s Representative shall, within 5 Business Days of notification, confirm in writing whether:(a) the Change is withdrawn; or
(b) the Change is accepted and a Change Order will be issued, including agreed adjustment to the Contract Sum and Time for Completion.
No work on a Change is required until written confirmation under (b) is received, except where necessary for safety or to prevent damage to completed Works.”
Takeaway
This gives your PMs a clean line: either it’s in scope, or it’s a paid change.
No more “we’ll sort it later” conversations that evaporate when the final account hits the table.
Until Next Week…
That’s it for now.
We’ll be back next week with sharper signals, industry moves, and talent updates from the field.
— Team Critical Load
Sponsored this week by Praxima Partners — Not just Recruiters, Operators who Recruit.
📩 [email protected]
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Rates are aggregated, historic, and indicative only. Talent availability is dynamic and subject to change without notice.
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