Whitefiber Reports Q1 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

Whitefiber (NASDAQ:WYFI) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Thursday. Below is the complete transcript from the call. This content is powered by Benzinga APIs. For comprehensive financial data and transcripts, visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/. Access the full call at https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1762880&tp_key=ad313011e4 Summary Whitefiber reported a solid first quarter of 2026 with a 31% year-over-year increase in revenue, reaching $21.9 million, primarily driven by growth in colocation services. The company's strategic focus remains on data center development, specifically through its retrofit strategy, which was demonstrated by the swift conversion of Montreal 3 into a Tier 3 data center. NC1 in North Carolina is progressing well, with Duke Energy delivering initial utility power, and the company expects to start delivering capacity soon, despite minor supply chain delays. Whitefiber completed the purchase of Montreal 3, reducing lease payments and planning to significantly increase the site's available power. The cloud segment is undergoing a strategic pivot to focus on longer-term enterprise deployments, with a significant nine-figure opportunity in the final stages of negotiation. Management emphasized the importance of execution in the current high-demand environment, highlighting the company's ability to quickly bring sites online and manage complex operations. The company ended the quarter with $80.1 million in total cash and cash equivalents, supported by a $230 million private placement of convertible notes. Full Transcript Cameron Schneer (Vice President of Capital Markets and Corporate Strategy) Thank you and welcome to the White Fiber first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are Sam Tabar, our Chief Executive Officer, and Eric Huang, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that some of the statements we make on this call are forward looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors described in today's earnings press Release. Our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026 filed today, as well as our other filings we make with the SEC from time to time. Our remarks today may also include non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our form 10Q and in the earnings press release posted on our website. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Sam to discuss our performance. Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) Sam thank you Cam. And thank you everyone for joining us. The first quarter was another important quarter for Whitefiber. We delivered a solid first quarter with year over year revenue growth, strong gross margins and positive adjusted EBITDA while continuing to invest in the AI infrastructure platform we are building. More importantly, we continue to make progress across the four areas that matter most in creating long term value creation, data center development, customer demand financing and cloud capacity deployment. The market backdrop remains very strong. Demand for AI infrastructure continues to exceed available supply. Customers need power, they need high density capacity, they need speed and they need partners who can actually execute. That last point is important. In this market. Demand is not the main constraint. Access to potential sites is not the main constraint. The real constraint is execution. Power has to be secured, equipment has to arrive, capital has to be available, customer requirements have to be finalized, construction has to be managed and the facility has to be delivered and operated at a high standard. That is where we believe Whitefiber is differentiated. Our retrofit first strategy is designed to reduce development risk and shorten the path from site acquisition to revenue. Montreal 3 is a good example. We converted an existing industrial facility into a Tier 3 data center in approximately six months. Who else does that? And now the site is supporting Cerebras. At the same time, the current market environment is challenging. Equipment lead times are longer, supply chains are tighter, utility and commissioning timelines are complex. That is why we are disciplined about how we commit to new projects and why execution remains the central focus of the business. With that context, I'll start with NC1, our site in North Carolina. NC1 continued to make substantial progress during the quarter and after quarter end. Duke Energy has completed delivery of the initial 54 gross megawatts of utility power to the site, supporting the first 40 megawatts of IT load. Under our agreement with nScale, construction and commissioning activity remains highly active with approximately 600 personnel on site last week. As the facility moves through final commissioning stages, the major equipment packages needed for the deployment including generators, ups, systems and chillers are all on site. The remaining supply chain item we are managing relates to certain medium voltage switchgear components. That is not a broad equipment availability issue across the project. We expect to begin delivering initial capacity within the next couple of weeks. In connection with the supply chain related timing item similar to what we are seeing across the broader sector, delivery may begin slightly later than June 1st. Based on our current discussions, we do not expect a material delay, a material impact to our customers commissioning process or a change to the overall project economics. The core commercial rationale for NC1 remains unchanged. The project is backed by a long term agreement with nScale and the deployment is supported by nScale's investment grade hyperscaler offtake. As a reminder, construction started in January. We are moving this project from construction to initial capacity delivery on a timeline unmatched by any of our peers for a 40 megawatt AI infrastructure deployment. We believe NC1 validates the strength and speed to market of our retrofit model, especially in an environment where utility timelines and electrical equipment constraints are impacting projects across the broader data center industry. Importantly, NC1 remains a strategic platform asset beyond the initial deployment. We continue advancing plans for additional capacity at the site and expect to begin marketing the next 45 megawatts tranche of capacity this summer. We are also working with the utility on longer term power expansion opportunities with the potential to scale the site up to approximately 300 gross megawatts over time. That is why we remain excited about NC1. The initial nScale deployment is important, but it is not the Full opportunity. We believe NC1 can become a larger platform asset over time as we bring the first 40 megawatts online, advance the next tranche of capacity and continue working on the broader power expansion path. In short, NC1 is nearing the point where it could begin converting contracted demand into revenue. We believe this will be an important milestone for. Excuse me, we believe that this will be an important milestone for Whitefiber and a major proof point that our retrofit model can create large scale, high value AI infrastructure. Turning to Montreal 3 the first quarter was the first full quarter of operations for that facility. Montreal 3 is supporting our colocation agreement with Cerebras. Cerebras is an important innovator in AI infrastructure and we are proud to support their growth. We congratulate their team on this exciting milestone as they become a public company and we look forward to continuing to support them as their infrastructure needs grow over time. After quarter end, we completed the purchase of Montreal 3 through the exercise of our previously disclosed purchase option. The purchase was supported by our amended credit facility from the Royal bank of Canada. We believe owning Montreal 3 is strategically beneficial. It reduces our lease payments by approximately 3.1 million Canadian or 2.3 million US annually over the remaining term. It also gives us greater control over a strategic asset that is already generating revenue and we believe it allows us to capture more of the upside if the site can be expanded. On that note, we have submitted an application with the local utility to more than triple the available power of that site over time. This remains subject to utility review and approval, but it is an important part of of why we believe ownership of that specific site is valuable. If approved, the incremental power would increase the strategic value of Montreal 3 well beyond the current deployment. This is a good example of how we think about our platform. We are not only bringing sites online quickly, we are also looking for ways to own, optimize and expand assets once they are operational. Turning to Montreal 2, we continue to advance discussions around the best customer solution for that site. We have quality customer interest in the facility and we believe the location can support valuable enterprise and AI infrastructure use cases. The site is smaller than NC1, but it has strategic value because of its location, connectivity and potential fit for customers seeking more targeted deployments. We are focused on matching the site with the right customer and the right commercial structure. As with the rest of our pipeline, we will remain disciplined and move forward only when there is customer demand. Economics and capital plans are all aligned. More broadly, our pipeline remains active and continues to improve in both quality and scale. We are not constrained by customer demand and we are not constrained by access to potential sites. We have both. The gating item is making sure each project has the right combination of power, customer alignment, capital availability, equipment, visibility and execution certainty before we commit that discipline is important, but it should not be mistaken for a lack of opportunity. We are seeing more customer interest than we can currently serve and we are evaluating sites that are larger and more scalable than our initial Montreal deployments. The opportunities we are most advanced on today are not small follow on projects. Several are comparable to or even larger than NC1 in potential scale. Importantly, we believe these opportunities also offer meaningful near term power availability along with significant expansion paths over time. We are not disclosing specific locations or counterparties before transactions are finalized because that protects our negotiating position, but we do want shareholders to understand that the quality and scale of the pipeline has continued to improve. Our goal is to demonstrate in the coming months that this pipeline can translate into actionable customer backed projects. We are focused on opportunities where we can align customer demand, site control, power availability and financing from the outset. That is important in this market. Equipment lead times are increasing, utility timelines are complex and customers are demanding more certainty before committing to large deployments. We do not want to announce capacity just to announce capacity. We want to build a pipeline that can be contracted, financed, delivered and operated reliably. We are advancing several opportunities and expect to close at least one additional site in the coming months subject to final diligence documentation, customer alignment and capital availability. That is the standard we are holding ourselves to. We believe this approach gives us the best chance to turn a strong pipeline into durable financed revenue generating assets. Turning to our cloud business we discussed last quarter we made the decision to strategically pivot this business in Q1. This shift positions us to deliver a longer duration enterprise deployment, managed infrastructure services and next generation GPU capacity. While we implement this strategy, it has created near term revenue pressure and we continue to expect the second quarter to be the low point for cloud revenue. However, we are seeing positive outcomes faster than we expected As a result of this change. The cloud business today is in a much stronger strategic position than it was only a few months ago. We remain focused on improving our customer mix, extending contract duration, sharpening our return thresholds and moving away from shorter term commodity bare metal leasing. At the same time we are seeing accelerating momentum and high quality pipeline growth and deal velocity. Notably, we are in the final stages of a long duration nine figure cloud opportunity with a high quality enterprise customer in a new market. We expect to provide more detail if and when the agreement is executed and customer disclosure approvals are in place. We view opportunities like this as important validation of our revised cloud strategy. They combine long duration customer contracts, next generation GPU infrastructure, customer supporting funding and attractive project level financing. They also diversify our cloud footprint geographically and reinforce that demand for high performance AI infrastructure is global. In addition, we signed a two year agreement with Hyperbolic for approximately $17 million of total contract value supporting Moto Labs as the end customer. This deployment uses H200 GPUs from our existing owned fleet as part of our cross data center R and D project, so it does not require incremental GPU capex. The deployment is expected to begin contributing revenue in the coming months. This was a competitive process with multiple customers interested in acting as a design partner for the ongoing R and D. We selected a customer who saw value in the novel infrastructure and how they can apply it to their environments. As a design partner, Moto Labs will support ongoing R and D through input on design, development and testing. We expect that they will scale with this cluster as they move through later phases of R and D. This structure allows us to monetize existing capacity while continuing to develop technology that we believe can differentiate our platform and contribute meaningfully to our revenue growth. We plan to announce the outcomes of this first phase of R and D in late Q2. More broadly, we are seeing strong interest in current and next generation GPU capacity. Our current prospects and customers are increasingly looking for reserved high performance infrastructure as well as vendors who can reliably support their scaling requirements. That is where we believe Whitefiber can compete more effectively. Our cloud pipeline has expanded meaningfully. Today we are tracking more than 50,000 GPUs representing a weighted pipeline value of approximately $3.3 billion based on pipeline stage and probability of close. Not all of that will convert and we will remain selective, but the size and quality of the pipeline, as well as diversity in deal types shows the level of demand we are seeing for high performance AI infrastructure. Based on our current momentum, we expect cloud revenue to grow sequentially in the third quarter and build through the second half of the year. We are focused on securing contracts that are meaningfully cash flow positive across the term. This allows us to fund growth through customer prepayments and attractive equipment financing rather than relying solely on the corporate balance sheet. This is important for capital discipline. It allows us to pursue cloud opportunities where customer demand, contract structure and financing are aligned from the beginning. We are also continuing to invest in technology that can differentiate our platform over time and is directly aligned to our go to market strategy. This includes our cross data center R and D work, high performance networking, storage architecture and other monetizable innovations. We are making progress towards protecting this work through intellectual property filings and we expect to share more detail through technical updates, announcements and white papers when appropriate. This is the strategic role we want cloud to play within Whitefiber, a disciplined, enterprise focused platform that complements our data center business, deepens customer relationships and creates additional ways to monetize our infrastructure and technical capabilities. The key point here is that we are not chasing cloud revenue at any price. We are focused on deployments that meet our return thresholds, including durable customer commitments, offer built in scaling and strengthen the overall platform. We believe the cloud business is now moving from a transition period into a renewed growth phase. I will now turn over the call to our Chief Financial Officer Eric to discuss our financial results. Thank you Sam. Eric Huang (Chief Financial Officer) I will now review our first quarter financial results and balance sheet. First quarter revenue was $21.9 million. This compared to a 16.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. This was increase of 31%. Cloud revenue was $16.8 million. This compares to a 14.8 million in the first quarter, 2025. Cloud revenue was lower than the fourth quarter as expected as we continue to reposition capacity toward longer duration enterprise deployments. Colocation services revenue was $4.8 million. This compares to 1.6 million in the first quarter of 2025. The increase was mainly due to Montreal 3 which began bidding in October 2025. Under our collocation agreement with Cerebras. Gross profits excluding depreciation and amortization was $13.2 million. Gross margin was 60.2%. This compares to a gross profit of $10.1 million and gross margin of 60.5% in the first quarter of last year. Depreciation and amortization expense was $6.4 million. This compares to a 3.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. The increase was mainly due to the expansion of our cloud and colocation infrastructure. General and administrative expense was $17.8 million. This compares to a 4.2 million in the first quarter of last year. The increase was mainly due to the share based compensation, higher headcount costs related to operating as a standalone public company and continued investment in their platform. Based on our current expectations, we do believe Q2 G&A will decrease by around 20% compared to the first quarter. Operating loss was $11 million as compared to an operating income of 2 million in the first quarter of 2025. Interest expense was $2 million primarily related to convertible notes issued during the quarter. Net loss was $12 million. This compared to a net income of $1.4 million in the first quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBitDA was $3 million. This compares to an adjusted EBitDA of $6 million in the first quarter of 2025. The year over year change was mainly due to higher operating expenses as we invested in the business and built the public company platform. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $75.8 million of cash and cash equivalents and $4.3 million of restricted cash. The total cash and cash restricted cash was $80.1 million. During the quarter we completed a $230 million private placement of 4.5% convertible senior notes due 2031. In connection with the notes, we also entered into a zero strike cost structure. The structure is designed to materially reduce potential dilution from the notes. Cash declined from year end primarily due to the continued capital investment in data center infrastructure and equipment deposits, partially offset by proceeds from the convertible notes financing and proceeds from the sale of certain GPU assets. In March, White Fiber Iceland entered into a secured turn loan facility with Lensbanke. The facility provides up to $20 million available borrowings. It's secured by White Fiber Iceland shares and certain assets including GPU service and related equipment. After quarter end we drew $18 million under this facility. Also after quarter end we entered into amended credit agreement with RBC. This provides a 28 million Canadian dollar facility to support the purchase of the Module 3 site. The purchase closed in May and we also continue to evaluate additional financing options to support our data center development pipeline. Overall, the first quarter showed continued revenue growth, strong gross margin and positive adjusted ebitda. We also continue to invest in the infrastructure and balance sheet needed to support the next phase of the growth. I will now turn the call back to Sam. Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) Thanks Eric. Before we move to Q and A, I want to take a step back and talk about where we are as a company. The first part of this year has been about getting the platform ready for the next stage. At NC1 we have been focused on bringing the project through construction, energization, commissioning and initial revenue. At the same time, we are well underway in a formal project level financing process for NC1 lender. Diligence is active, including site level diligence and we are very encouraged by the quality of engagement to date. We believe the process is moving toward a Near term financing solution that reflects the quality of the asset and the long term contracted cash flow profile of the project. This financing is important because it can validate the credit quality of NC1, recycle capital already invested in the project and give us more flexibility to move on to the next customer backed opportunity. We also continue to maintain access to bridge financing solutions. We view that capital as a flexibility tool, not the long term financing plan. Importantly, it can allow us to activate select near term opportunities without waiting for permanent project level financing to be fully in place. That matters because some of the best opportunities require speed. If we have the right site, the right customer and the right return profile, we want the ability to move quickly. The goal remains the same. Complete NC1 put efficient project level financing finance excuse me, Put efficient project level financing in place and recycle capital into the next customer backed opportunity. We believe that model is now coming into focus and we are closer than ever to demonstrating the flywheel we have been building toward. That flywheel is straightforward. Secure a strategic site, match it with the high quality customer demand, finance the project, efficiently, deliver the capacity and recycle capital into the next opportunity. We know shareholders want more detail on the pipeline. We want to be transparent. But we also need to protect the company's negotiating position. If we identify specific sites, markets, sellers or customers before transactions are finalized, we can give counterparties leverage and make those opportunities harder or more expensive to close. That would not serve shareholders. What I can say is that customer demand is very real and it is not concentrated in one conversation. We are in advanced discussions with two large high quality customers for two distinct site opportunities, including customers with skilled AI infrastructure needs and strong credit profiles. We also continue to see broad demand from a wide range of credible potential customers across the market. The cloud business is also in a much better position than it was only a few months ago. The reset is working. We are seeing better customers, longer commitments, stronger financing structures and more opportunities supported by customer prepayments and equipment financing. So while the first part of the year required a lot of foundational work, the pieces are now coming together. NC1 is nearing initial revenue, the financing process is advancing. The pipeline is larger and more actionable. Montreal 3 is operational and now owned and cloud is moving from transition into renewed growth. Our job now is quite simply execution. That means delivering for customers when projects are complex. It means solving problems, staying aligned and giving customers confidence that Whitefiber can support their growth. That is how one project can lead to the next. That is what we are building at Whitefiber. A project that can Secure strategic sites, deliver high quality infrastructure, support customer growth finance projects efficiently and repeat that model over time. As a note, Whitefiber President Billy Krasakopoulos and Head of Revenue Billy Kladek will be available for Q and A today. Yes, that is two Billys. Billy Klidek joined Whitefiber earlier this year and leads enterprise and partnership strategy for our cloud business. He brings more than 12 years of experience building and scaling go to market organizations across SaaS, commerce and AI infrastructure. More recently, he led global go to market at Firework, where he helped scale the company's commerce platform across major global retailers and consumer brands. Thank you. I will now open the line for questions. OPERATOR If you'd like to ask a question, please Signal by pressing STAR 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure you're muted. Function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, that is STAR 1 to signal for a question. And we'll go right to Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities. Nick Giles (Equity Analyst) Hi Nick. Thanks operator. Good morning. Hey guys. Good morning. Really just my first question was about the expansion at MTL3. Was wondering if you could, you know, talk about the capex side. Would we expect the expansion to benefit from the same level of capex savings and then just any sense on timing as far as utility approvals or when, you know, that kind of additional build out could ultimately begin. Thanks. Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) You got it. We have two Billy's on the line, so I'm going to refer to either Billy Data center or Billy Cloud. So Billy Data center, you want to go? Sure. Billy Krasakopoulos (President) Hi Nick. Yeah, the real key gating item here is power we've made since we've acquired the building, we made the application to the utility provider for a threefold increase and all indications are positive at the moment. But we don't have any news around timing right now. But if and when we receive additional power, Cerebris will be certainly one of the first customers we speak with. They're important customer for us and we welcome the opportunity to support more of their growth at Montreal 3 to your question around CAPEX again, it's a little, it's a little early to pronounce any sort of budgets or stuff like that, but we do expect them to be in line with our past Montreal bills. Nick Giles (Equity Analyst) Understood, that's very helpful, Billy. And then just maybe on the point with Cerebras, that agreement is in line with your thesis around the importance of inference. So as we think about new site selection, can you just speak to, you know how you're balancing sites that could be closer to large metros that maybe may be better suited for inference or if you're looking more to kind of tier 2, tier 3 markets and how ultimately acquisition costs would differ in either scenario. Billy Krasakopoulos (President) For sure, acquisition costs are a little lower in tier 2 markets, but everything we're looking at right now is to support inference type architecture and solutions and it's really active conversations that we have with customers in our pipeline. Nick Giles (Equity Analyst) Understood. Okay, well I'll turn it over for now, but appreciate the update guys, thanks. OPERATOR We go next to John Todaro with Needham and Company. John Todaro (Equity Analyst) Hey guys, thanks for taking my question and congrats on all the progress here. Certainly a number of items going on. So I guess first on the pipeline, when you said expect to close one new site in the coming months, assuming that's going to land in power. I know in the past you kind of, as you thought about acquisitions for additional sites, there's been kind of some negotiation with a potential counterparty on a lease kind of in the background. So when you do announce the new site, should we be thinking hey, a lease comes in short order after that or not, would it actually take some time to then go out and market that site? Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) I would like Cam and Billy to answer that question. Billy Kladek (Head of Revenue) For sure. A major part of our site selection process comes from the dialogues we're having with current customers in our pipeline. So yes, we do. We are targeting sites with more or less a customer already, customer engagement already happening or a customer already in hand. Yeah, I mean it would probably somewhat depend on the materiality threshold and when we actually announce the acquisition, whether there's any delay. But certainly our goal, our intent is to pair them as soon as possible. John Todaro (Equity Analyst) Thank you, that's very helpful. And then maybe just a sort of housekeeping item. That nine figure cloud contract that you mentioned, I'm sorry if I missed it. Where would we expect that to be slated? Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) Is that something part of the pipeline or somewhere in an existing site or a third party data center provider? We can't say too much about that until that thing is signed. Billy Kladek (Head of Revenue) So unless, unless Billy Cloud wants to give some more color on it. But we would like to just keep our. We just want that thing signed before we give out any information. That's okay. Generally. Yeah, we didn't announce that it would be in one of our own sites, so you could directionally assume it would be a third party. John Todaro (Equity Analyst) Okay, understood. Thank you guys, appreciate it. OPERATOR Our next question comes from the line of Paul Golding with Macquarie. Paul Golding (Equity Analyst) Thanks so much. For taking my question. Hey, how are you? Congrats on all the progress. Wanted to ask about GPUs. Initially noticed in your press release that the hyperbolic 2 year agreement was for existing H2 hundreds. Was wondering if the conversations you're having incrementally beyond the hyperbolic deal with potential counterparties around Cloud is also relating to that generation of gpu? Or if we may expect that you might have to acquire newer iterations of accelerators as your conversations progress around Cloud. And then I have a follow up on data centers. Billy Kladek (Head of Revenue) Thank you, Billy. Cloud, you want to take that? Yeah, happy to answer that. Given the dynamic nature of this market, we look to achieve a few things with all of our deals and that's a minimum three year term cash flow positive for the life of the deal and prepayments that prevent investing capital from our balance sheet. So with that said, most of the deals that we're looking at right now are for generations beyond the H200, mostly the B3 hundreds that we're seeing out in market. And as we continue to align the data center and cloud roadmaps, we see opportunities to achieve stronger margins there as well. And we have a few compelling opportunities on the managed services side that we'll talk about in the future for those deals. We'll adhere to the same core philosophies, but expect strong margins from day one. Paul Golding (Equity Analyst) Great, thanks so much. And then on the data center front, looks like Duke is progressing well on the various phases, at least within the first 99 megawatt delivery and doing so timely. Was wondering if that along with the sort of potential upsizing to the 300 megawatts for NC1 is changing the approach or the thought process around acquisition of incremental retrofit sites. Given that, it seems that you might be able to realize additional upside even versus the upside that was contemplated when the asset was acquired. Is that changing how you approach incremental sites? Maybe being more open to smaller sites initially given given that upside that you might be able to realize here. Billy Krasakopoulos (President) Thanks Billy. Data center, you want to answer that? So it's not really changing our approach, Paul. I mean that is our approach. We look for sites that have a good amount of power there on day one, sites that we can cash flow quickly and then move on to another project, execute a phase one there and then come back to the initial project and do a phase two or phase three. So it's pretty much a copy of what we're doing in North Carolina. We knew that there was a path forward to getting more power at the site we just didn't know how much and the timing around it. But the part of our due diligence and the discussions that we have with utility providers, it's always trying to gauge, yes, here's what's there on day one, but what can we do going forward? So our approach hasn't really changed. That is our approach. Paul Golding (Equity Analyst) Thanks Billy. Billy Krasakopoulos (President) Just maybe just to clarify also on that, are you contributing anything in the sense of hardware or other services to facilitate Duke delivering on an upsizing beyond the 200. That was maybe the original view now to 300. We're still in the, in the early phases of that and studying that with their engineers and our engineers. But yes, there's some, some land on, on the property that we need to give them so they can build a new substation. Paul Golding (Equity Analyst) Understood, thank you so much. OPERATOR If you find your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing Star two. And we'll go next to George Sutton with Craig Hallam. Logan Hey guys, this is Logan on for George. So you've talked quite a bit today about execution being the constraint, not demand. And I was wondering if you could just frame that up for us, for us a bit. Is there a way to kind of size the capacity that the team would be capable of handling from a construction standpoint? And as we think about there maybe being two more deals coming, it sounds like in the relative near term are those sites where you've already started to order some of the longer lead time equipment. I just want to get a better sense for like what the size of the constraint is here in a demand environment. That certainly sounds pretty good. Billy Krasakopoulos (President) Hi Logan. Yeah, so the actual construction project, management, manpower, boots on the ground, we're able to easily scale that because of the processes and procedures that we have put in place. And like you outlined, it's really supply chain issues is being able to locate that sheer quantity of equipment to deliver these types of projects. What we can say right now, I mean our thesis, our approach to this is North Carolina - copy-pasted two or three times over. Logan Okay, got it. And then just a quick one on the financing side for me. I'm curious as you move to that potentially being done closer to when NC1 is actually going to be live and generating cash flow, does that help improve the terms in any way relative to if you completed financing say during the construction phase where there was maybe more risk involved with delivery? Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) I mean that's pretty self intuitive. I think you could almost answer that question yourself. But Eric, do you Want to give some, some thoughts around that? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Eric Huang (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah, we do see increasing engagement, you know, from our discussions with vendors and counterparties as we're approaching, you know, they complete the construction and you know, it's definitely more favorable for securing a better terms for financing. Logan Okay, got it. Thank you. OPERATOR We'll go next to the line of Brian Dobson with Clear Street. Brian Dobson (Equity Analyst) Hey, Brian. Hey, how are you doing? Thanks so much for taking my question. So we're seeing rising demand across the sector for compute data centers. Do you think that, you know, call it over the, over the next year or so, is that going to translate into better contract terms or do you think just the contract signing momentum might, might pick up? I guess. How do you, how do you think this rising demand environment will play out for you, Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) Billy? Data center? You want to take that? Billy Krasakopoulos (President) I think it'll play out for us really well because we put ourselves in a position where we can execute much faster than our peers. So in this capacity constraint environment, that's really important. And on top of that we also have a proven track record of operating. You know, that's. I feel like that is a important point that often gets mislooked in the industry. Sometimes people are building these types of facilities and only thinking about the operations towards the tail end of their project. And these sites are so complex and there's so many moving parts and different types of technologies involved that the operation of these large scale facilities really requires a strong team with experience. And we have that, coupled with the speed that we bring these sites online puts us in a really good position in what is a competitive market right now. Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) Yeah, I want to add a few words about that. I'd like to remind all listeners that Billy and his team, they've been working on the retrofit format speed to market formula over the past 15 years. Now I think even more than that, and there's a lot of team continuity in that timeline, they were in this sector well before how the sector is today. Back then it was a boring sector and no one really talked about it. Now there's a lot of focus and chatter about this sector. But Billy and his team, one of the reasons why we acquired NVM, and Billy is the CEO of NVM, which we acquired a couple of years ago, was really because of their retrofit skill set and the storied track record they have in doing this retrofit format for a very, very long time. And they even done it for the likes of hyperscalers like Microsoft and Amazon. And they already have a Great track record in doing it under the white fiber banner. Including cerebras and others. NC1 is our fourth facility that we acquired that's about to come online for N scale. And so, you know, I agree with Billy. There's a lot of people who seem to forget that we have a very specialized team on the retrofit side. And that is very important because speed to market is why we have such a pregnant pipeline of demand and customers who are banging on our doors and asking to engage with our team because we can get things up and running very quickly, unlike greenfield projects. Brian Dobson (Equity Analyst) Yeah, that's great. In fact, that was my follow up question about the two potential clients you discussed. Do you think that that's what drew them into negotiations with you? Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) Oh, absolutely. But Billy, feel free Billy Krasakopoulos (President) for sure. It's one of the, one of the factors. I mean they have orders in for equipment, GPUs, processing power for 2027 that they need to find a home for. And I mean that's one of the gaining factors. Existing relationships, existing clients, all looking to grow with us. Great. Thanks very much for the color. Brian Dobson (Equity Analyst) Thank you. OPERATOR Once again, that is STAR 1. To signal for a question, we'll go next to the line of Sharif Elmo Grabi with btig. Sharif Elmo Grabi (Equity Analyst) Hi, good morning. Thank you. Good. Hi. Are you in a position to market for NC1? Are you in a position to market any more of the 54 megawatts of Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) capacity or is it better to wait for more capacity at the site? Billy, you want to take that? Billy Krasakopoulos (President) Billy, the, the initial 54 megawatts is what we're calling phase one. And that's fully contracted with N scale. We have an additional 45 megawatts that is set to deliver towards the middle, between the middle and the end of 2027. And we'll be marketing that right after we deliver phase one at NC1. And important to note, I mean obviously there's no, there's no, we would be offering that first rate of capacity to N scale. Just there are preferred client there, but we would still have the opportunity to market that space if we wanted to. Yeah, that's helpful. And then zooming out, as you guys talked about in the call, power and Sharif Elmo Grabi (Equity Analyst) power equipment is in. There's a lot of demand. So is there anything you can do Billy Krasakopoulos (President) to avoid a tight supply chain impacting future projects or am I putting the Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) horse before the cart here? I mean, it's a, it's a very important part of our planning process. You know, like North Carolina one. There was equipment ordered before we had clients Signed, you know stuff that's site agnostic generators, UPS's stuff that does have longer lead time. So pre planning and having all that prepared to integrate into our project timelines is a really important part. And again our experience, suppliers that we worked with for over a decade now, all of that helps us improve and sharpen those timelines. Sharif Elmo Grabi (Equity Analyst) All right, thank you for taking my questions. OPERATOR Our next question comes from Michael Donovan with Compass Point. Michael Donovan (Equity Analyst) Hi guys, thanks for taking my question. I was hoping you could further discuss your strategy around power. So for potential site acquisitions, are you prioritizing those that have power from interconnected utilities like Duke Energy? Billy Krasakopoulos (President) Yes. Everything we're looking at right now is grid power. We're not looking at any self generation or off grid type solutions. We feel that those are first, they're extremely complicated to operate. Capex for those really complicates the overall profitability of the project. So we prefer on grid utility type power at every site we're looking at. Michael Donovan (Equity Analyst) Great, appreciate that. And then for the medium voltage switch gear, is that switch gear for the entire 40 megawatts? Is it a portion of it? How should we think about the delivery for N scale would be a little bit lumpy or just hoping to get a little more color on that on Billy Krasakopoulos (President) revenue contribution and timing. Thanks. So it really is, it's a fluid, it's still a little bit fluid. It really is fresh. It's a couple of days. That's news of the last couple of days. Initially it was the entire lineup. It has since improved. So we will be delivering capacity on a scaled ramp up type delivery instead of a one lump sum on day one. And that also it also helps our client in testing and commissioning this stuff as well. So yeah, we've gone through a handful of supply chain related issues in the last 45 days or so. Mitigated most of them, most of them fell into our, our buffer allocation that we had for the project and this one is just a couple of days fresh and we're working on it through our, our equipment suppliers, our general contractor and directly with the clients. Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) Yeah, just also mentioning that there is nothing material that's being, there's the delay here is not material and capacity will begin over the next few weeks. I think another, another important point to consider is that you know the timeline that we're executing on if this was an 18 month delivery, which is pretty much the standard that all our peers are working with, this delay would have not even. It would have fallen into larger buffer zones or it would have gone unnoticed because we're delivering this in six months. Any slight delay will have impact but like Sam said, we don't expect it to be anything material. Michael Donovan (Equity Analyst) Well noted. Appreciate the added color. OPERATOR We'll return to Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities. Nick Giles (Equity Analyst) Hey, thanks for taking my follow up. I just want. Hi, I just wanted to ask about capex. Q1 is always going to be kind of a larger spend quarter. Should we expect a similar magnitude in 2Q as you wrap up NC1? Or how could CapEx kind of progress throughout the year from the sites within your portfolio today? Thanks, Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) I think. Eric, would you like to take that? Sure. At this moment it's a little bit Eric Huang (Chief Financial Officer) hard to just provide a very precise number in terms of CapEx spend. And I just break down from data center and cloud services for data center after NC1OB Other sites We'll be looking at and once that's being finalized we'll certainly start spending capex on it. And on the cross side Billy mentioned as well, one of the criteria for our contracts is that it's not going to take a material balance sheet from the corporate. It will be a procurement based on the customer prepayments and GPU banked project level financing. So again, those are all deal by deal. So once the deal being announced you'll see more clarity. It's basically a deal by deal case. Nick Giles (Equity Analyst) Okay, understood. And then maybe one more for Billy Kay, if I could. We're seeing varying lease structures emerge and so I was curious if your thinking around lease structures for future deals has changed. Maybe how you pass through certain costs to customers and how that might impact the margin profile of any future deals. Billy Kay We're not really looking to change our structure right now. The only thing that we have been seeing is higher nrcs and setup fees due to custom or more complex type of deliveries that would go outside the scope of basic data center services. But on the margins and the monthly costs, we don't. We have been approached with certain different types of structures but we're not looking to change our billing profile right now. Nick Giles (Equity Analyst) Understood. Okay, thanks again guys. OPERATOR At this time we have no further questions. I'd like to turn the floor back to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks. Sam Tabar (Chief Executive Officer) Yep, I was on mute. My apologies. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you in the next quarter. That'll be one that we are definitely looking forward to engaging with you all. Thank you so much for today. Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.