Digital infrastructure surrounds us every day, though most people never think about it, and Fred Hubler frames it as a fast-growing alternative investment asset class. As technology accelerates, he explains, physical infrastructure has to keep pace, echoing the same accumulation trend he covered in an earlier piece on self-storage, except here what’s piling up is data rather than physical belongings.
He breaks down the many forms this infrastructure takes: cell towers, fiber optics, and data centers, among others, all holding data or supporting networks, alongside more specific services like internet connectivity, cloud computing, and security. The typical clients for these services are telecommunications firms or large technology companies, such as Google, and Hubler notes that today’s digital infrastructure gives clients more control over how they consume these services than in the past.
The infrastructure behind the internet is quietly becoming an asset class of its own.
See what else Hubler covers on Forbes, Would You Like To Own The Internet? Well, Sort Of.