Perkins Coie Launches Data Center Hub as $1 Trillion U.S. Infrastructure Boom Accelerates

When Perkins Coie LLP unveiled its new Data Center Hub on May 9, 2025, it wasn’t just adding a practice group—it was staking a claim in one of the fastest-growing, most complex industries on the planet. The Seattle-based law firm, with over 1,200 lawyers across 21 offices, is responding to a seismic shift: U.S. data center investments are projected to surpass $1 trillion in the next five years. That’s more than the entire GDP of Switzerland. And it’s all happening while power grids strain, climate regulations tighten, and AI demands more electricity than some small countries use.

The Perfect Storm Behind the Hub

It’s not just about more servers. It’s about what those servers require: massive amounts of power, cooling systems that rival nuclear plant efficiency, and legal frameworks that haven’t caught up with the pace of innovation. In 2024 alone, the U.S. added 5,000 megawatts of new data center capacity—equivalent to 1% of the nation’s total electricity consumption. And Bloomberg reports that just the next two years will demand another $150 billion in financing, separate from what tech giants like Meta Platforms are funding directly. (Yes, that’s the same company planning a $50 billion data center in Louisiana, as noted by President Donald Trump in early May.)

The legal landscape? A minefield. One client might need to secure land near a federal wildlife refuge. Another might be negotiating a power purchase agreement with a wind farm in MISO territory while complying with California’s Title 24 energy codes. Meanwhile, AI startups are signing contracts with cloud providers who don’t yet understand data sovereignty laws in Germany or Japan. That’s where Perkins Coie’s new hub comes in—not as a generalist, but as a specialist orchestra conductor.

Meet the Team Leading the Charge

The hub isn’t a name on a website. It’s five lawyers with deep, overlapping expertise:

• Jane Rueger, firmwide lead of Energy Infrastructure & Clean Technology, who’s spent years structuring deals between hyperscalers and renewable developers.
• Andrew Grant, chair of Technology Transactions & Privacy, navigating the murky waters of cross-border data flows and AI liability.
• Sumedha Ahuja, IP and AI/ML co-chair, protecting algorithms and training data as if they were trade secrets (because they are).
• Camarin Madigan and Michael Herrera, both seasoned in infrastructure finance and procurement contracts.

"It’s no secret that the growth of data centers... has been substantial," Rueger said in the firm’s announcement. "We’re not just advising—we’re building the infrastructure of the future, one contract at a time."

What They’ve Already Done—and What’s Next

Perkins Coie didn’t start from scratch. The firm has represented:

• A major tech leader in co-locating gigawatts of data centers with solar and battery storage across five U.S. grid regions (CAISO, PJM, MISO, etc.).
• A hyperscaler securing over 3,000 megawatts of wind and hydro power through long-term PPAs.
• A global firm acquiring Texas land with pre-built power infrastructure capable of supporting a small city’s worth of computing.
• A data center provider structuring "sleeved" renewable energy deals—essentially, hiding the complexity of green power behind a simple utility bill.

Now, they’re scaling it. Enter 2025 Data Center Week, a six-part webinar series running through May 2025. Sessions include:

• "Siting and Powering Data Centers on Federal Lands" (May 6, with Laura Morton and Ted Boling)
• "Powering the Cloud: Energy Procurement Strategies" (Jane Rueger)
• "Fortifying Data Centers: Navigating Data Privacy and Breach Insurance" (Vivek Chopra and Bradley Dlatt)
• "Wage-and-Hour Risks in the Digital Backbone" (Heather Sager and Heather Shook)

These aren’t theoretical discussions. They’re battle plans for real projects. One client, for instance, just lost a permit because they didn’t account for state-level wetland buffer rules—rules that vary by county. Another faced a class action over overtime pay for construction crews working 18-hour shifts on a 24/7 build site. These are the hidden costs of the digital age.

Why This Matters to Everyone

You might not run a data center, but your Netflix binge, your AI chatbot, your bank’s fraud detection system—all of it runs on these machines. And they’re consuming power at a rate that’s outpacing renewable build-out in many regions. In Virginia, where 4% of the state’s electricity now powers data centers, utilities are warning of brownouts by 2027. In Texas, transmission lines are overloaded. In Oregon, local governments are freezing new permits over water usage concerns.

Perkins Coie’s hub isn’t just serving clients—it’s helping shape policy. Their work on interconnection reform, district energy structures, and federal land use is quietly influencing how the entire grid evolves. This isn’t legal work in a vacuum. It’s infrastructure engineering with a briefcase.

What’s Next for the Industry

Expect more firms to follow Perkins Coie’s lead. But few have the depth. The next frontier? Carbon accounting for data centers. Water usage metrics. AI-powered grid balancing. And the looming question: Who owns the energy rights when a data center co-locates with a solar farm on private land?

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy is reportedly drafting new standards for data center efficiency—standards Perkins Coie’s team has already helped draft behind closed doors. The next five years won’t just be about building more servers. It’ll be about building smarter, greener, legally defensible infrastructure. And Perkins Coie is already drafting the blueprint.