About Metro Colo Advisory
Independent Data Center, Cloud and AI Infrastructure Advisory
North American coverage. Paid by the provider, not by you.
Metro Colo Advisory is an independent data center and infrastructure advisory firm. We place colocation, bare metal, reserved GPU capacity, private cloud and connectivity with providers across North America, and we work for the buyer. A growing share of our work is AI and high density infrastructure, where rack power has moved from 10 kilowatts to 140 and beyond in three years and the pool of facilities that can serve it is small. Placement costs the client nothing: the provider pays us when a deal closes, and we recommend what fits the requirement rather than what pays more. We also run paid data center consulting engagements for developers, investors and organizations deciding whether to build, buy or move.
Why Metro Colo Advisory Exists
Colocation gets bought infrequently and priced privately. A company might sign one agreement every three to five years, in a market where rates, available capacity and contract terms all move continuously, and where published pricing rarely matches what gets contracted.
That leaves most buyers without a reference point. Not because anyone is withholding it, but because the information sits with the people who transact daily, and a company placing its first deployment is not one of them.
We are in that market continuously, and on the buyer’s side of it. Working live requirements with operators is how we learn what capacity actually exists, what it contracts at, and where the advertised answer differs from the deliverable one. That is what we bring to the table.
The result is that going direct becomes a decision rather than a default.
AI and High Density Infrastructure
Rack power has outrun the buildings holding it.
The standard enterprise deployment most facilities were designed around is 5 to 10 kilowatts per rack. Average density across the industry reached about 27 kilowatts in 2026, up from 16 the year before. Current rack-scale GPU platforms draw 140 to 160 kilowatts, and the published roadmap runs past 600.
Very few facilities can serve that. Air cooling has a hard ceiling near 30 to 35 kilowatts per rack no matter how well a hall is engineered, and only about one operator in five reports being prepared even for the 50 to 70 kilowatt racks that are now routine. Above that, liquid cooling stops being optional.
So the questions that matter change. Not which provider, but whether a specific hall has facility water reaching the white space today rather than on a roadmap. Whether the floor carries the weight. Whether the electrical distribution has headroom for the next hardware generation, given colocation terms run five to ten years while the hardware envelope moves every twelve months.
We evaluate facilities at that level rather than at the provider level. A provider saying they support liquid cooling and a named hall having a loop to the floor today are different answers to the same question, and the gap between them is where deployments fail.
We work requirements from a few high density cabinets through multi-megawatt rack-scale deployments, across North America and internationally where a requirement demands it.
In August 2026 Data Center Knowledge reported on a search we ran for a client. Approximately 5 megawatts at 140 to 160 kilowatts per rack, taken to more than ten North American operators. Nearly every operator had available space. Almost none could support the density with direct liquid cooling.
What Independent Actually Means
The word gets used loosely. Here is what it means here.
We hold formal channel partner relationships with every major colocation provider, including Equinix, Digital Realty, CoreSite, DataBank and Cologix. Commissions vary by provider and product, and none of them decides a recommendation. If the best fit is a provider we do not work with, we say so.
Our only financial incentive is placing clients where they belong. Put a client in the wrong facility and they do not renew, do not refer, and tell people. Reputation is the entire business, and it is worth more than any single commission.
Which is why we give straight assessments of every provider, including where a facility is the wrong fit for a specific situation. Why we tell clients when staying on cloud is the right answer. And why we recommend facilities we have no particular reason to prefer, when they fit better.
We design nothing and operate nothing. That is why the advice is independent.
The AI Infrastructure Consulting Practice
Alongside the placement advisory, we run paid engagements for a different kind of client. Developers and investors deciding whether a site can serve AI infrastructure, and what it returns if it does.
The question is almost always the same. Someone controls land or a building with power secured, and nobody has told them who leases it.
Real estate advisors confirm the site works. Engineering firms confirm the building stands up. Neither answers whether a tenant at 140 kilowatts a rack would take it, or what the economics look like if they did.
A full engagement covers six things.
- Building envelope. What the site can serve and at what density, given power, floor loading, cooling architecture, clear height and area for mechanical plant. Output is a ceiling by zone rather than a single figure.
- Operator fit. Which operators match the site and the market, with the reasoning stated for each.
- Market context. Competitive supply in the region, and what tenants at each density tier actually require in a facility.
- Yield on cost. Capital, revenue, operating burden and exit value modelled across the paths available, being retail colocation, wholesale lease and powered shell, against a defined capital budget.
- Connectivity. Carrier position, physical route diversity, and the options for improving it.
- Specification and recommendation. Which path the analysis supports, what the building needs to be to capture it, and the sequence measured against the construction timeline.
We also run competitive procurement for organizations going to market, building the requirement document and evaluating responses against what the market is actually giving rather than what a rate card says.
Those engagements are paid by the client and priced separately. They are a different service from the placement advisory, and we keep them distinct.
The Companies We Work With
We were built for a segment the advisory landscape has consistently underserved.
Hyperscalers and the largest enterprises have dedicated infrastructure procurement teams, in-house real estate functions, and standing relationships with the CBRE and JLL data center practices. They are well served. At the other end, single-cabinet deployments are served adequately by direct provider relationships at retail pricing.
Everything in between has no dedicated advocate, and deal size is not what decides it. A company placing its first five megawatts of AI infrastructure is often less equipped for that negotiation than an enterprise placing twenty racks, because it has never done it before and has nobody in-house who has. Those are the buyers we work with.
AI and technology companies
Moving stable inference off cloud GPU, or placing training capacity at densities most facilities cannot hold.
Developers and investors
Holding sites with power secured, deciding what to build and who would occupy it.
Hedge funds and asset managers
That need financial ecosystem proximity and compliance-ready facilities.
Healthcare and life sciences organizations
Where a compliance failure is not survivable.
Law firms
That need documented physical control over client data.
Media companies
That need carrier-dense infrastructure for bandwidth-intensive workloads.
How We Work
We listen before we recommend.
The questions on a first call are not a qualification script. Requirements at this density vary enough that forming a view before understanding the workload produces the wrong facility.
We bring current market intelligence.
Not list price. Not the rate on a provider's website. What comparable deployments are contracting at right now. That benchmark changes the dynamic of every negotiation.
We create competition.
The most effective tool in any negotiation is having several parties competing for the business. We run evaluation processes that give clients options.
We stay through signing.
Our involvement does not end when a client picks a provider. We review every contract before it is signed and flag the provisions that matter most across a five year term: escalation mechanics, renewal structure, commitment levels against actual usage, remote hands rates, and density escalation rights. That stage is where the advisory earns its keep, even though the fee comes from the provider.
We build long-term relationships.
Quarterly check-ins. Renewal evaluations that begin twelve months before expiration. Market updates when conditions shift. The goal is an advisory relationship that compounds, not a transaction.
Market Coverage
We place clients across every major US colocation market, and we run searches internationally where a requirement demands it.
Our deepest market knowledge is the New York metro, and that focus is deliberate. It is one of the most valuable and most complex infrastructure markets in the world, and it rewards specialization. The financial ecosystem in Secaucus, the carrier hotels in Manhattan, the campuses in Rockland and Westchester, the emerging interconnection in the outer boroughs. Each has characteristics that matter to buyers and that take local depth to navigate.
We publish market analysis on the facilities, pricing and contract terms across the markets we cover. It is built from specific figures rather than general commentary, because that is the only kind of analysis worth acting on.
New York metro: Manhattan carrier hotels and enterprise facilities · Secaucus and Northern New Jersey · Rockland and Westchester campuses · Staten Island internet exchange infrastructure · Brooklyn and Queens edge infrastructure
National markets: Atlanta · Chicago · Dallas · Houston · Los Angeles · San Francisco · Washington DC · and every other major US market through our channel relationships
Ready to Talk?
Tell us about your current infrastructure, your requirements and your timeline. We will come back with recommendations based on the market as it stands today, not a list of providers.
No cost. No obligation.
