R-02Resources · Site readiness
A data center readiness checklist tests whether a specific site can host and energize compute, across eight domains: power and interconnection, space and pad, structural, network, water and heat rejection, permitting, logistics, and security. The 25 checks below each carry a pass criterion and the condition that should raise a flag.
PUBLISHED LAST VERIFIED BY JOSEF ELIMELECHREVIEWED PODOS AI ENGINEERING
How the scoring works
Power and interconnection, space and pad, structural, network, water and heat rejection, permitting, logistics, and security — each check with a pass criterion and a flag condition.
Every flag becomes a cost and a date. A parcel with four priced flags beats one with no flags and an unanswered interconnection question.
Pass, flag, or unknown — and unknown is the state that hurts, because tired reviewers quietly score unknowns as passes.
The written energization date, the heat-rejection method, and the transport route survey decide the timeline before the rest matter.
Method
A flag is not a rejection but an unpriced item, and the discipline is converting every flag into a number and a date. A parcel with four priced flags beats one with no flags and an unanswered interconnection question. Three answers decide the schedule before the rest matter: the written energization date, the heat-rejection method, and the transport route survey.
Score each check as pass (met, and evidenced by a document rather than a conversation), flag (not met, with an owner, a cost, and a date), or unknown — the most dangerous state, because tired reviewers quietly score unknowns as passes. Walk the domains in order: power first, because it eliminates sites outright; security last, because it rarely does. LBNL put US data-center electricity near 4.4% of national consumption in 2023, with a 2028 range of 6.7% to 12%.[3] The IEA projects data-centre demand rising from about 1.5% of global electricity in 2025 toward roughly 3% by 2030.[1]
Where each domain continues
Screening ends where paid engineering begins. SR-01 and SR-02 continue into the deployment sequence; the vocabulary the checks use is defined term by term in the glossary.
Stage one of a modular AI deployment takes SR-01 and SR-02 out of screening and into engineering: how to assess site power, network, access, pad and permitting — and the conditions that disqualify a site early. Site and power readiness
Plain-language definitions of 40 AI infrastructure terms used across these checks — PUE, direct-to-chip cooling, CDU, KV cache, interconnection queue, rack density, and more. AI infrastructure glossary
SR-01 – SR-08
Walk them in order: power first, because it eliminates sites outright; security last, because it rarely does.
This domain decides the schedule. Everything else on the list can be engineered around.
Measure the usable rectangle, not the parcel.
Dense compute is a concentrated load on a small footprint; bearing capacity drives foundation cost more than area does.
Score this against the workload the site will actually run — training and inference have different profiles.
The heat-rejection choice, not the cooling method, decides whether the site consumes water.
Permitting is where optimistic schedules break. Meet the authority having jurisdiction before scoring the site.
Routinely skipped, routinely expensive — prefabricated equipment only saves time if it can reach the pad.
Score how the site will be run, not only how it will be built.
Checks 01 – 13
The four domains that eliminate a site. Each row is one check: what a pass looks like, and the condition that should raise a flag.
| Domain | Check | Pass when | Flag when |
|---|---|---|---|
| SR-01 | Firm capacity at the service point | The utility confirms in writing the full connected load plus mechanical and electrical overhead. | Capacity depends on a substation or transmission upgrade with no committed in-service date. |
| SR-01 | Energization date vs hardware delivery | A written energization date precedes hardware arrival, with float for utility rework. | The date is study-pending or trails delivery — the usual cause of stranded capital.[2] |
| SR-01 | Voltage, transformer, and fault duty | Medium-voltage service, transformer sizing, and available fault current are documented for equipment ratings. | Only low-voltage service exists, or fault-current data is missing, forcing conservative gear selection.[10] |
| SR-01 | Flexibility where capacity is short | A curtailable arrangement and on-site storage siting are priced before the site is rejected. | No curtailment tolerance, no firm capacity, and no storage plan — three constraints with no engineering answer.[6] |
| SR-02 | Clear buildable rectangle | Area net of setbacks, easements, and drainage fits the footprint plus service clearances. | It fits only by encroaching on a setback, turning a site question into a variance question. |
| SR-02 | Pad and lift envelope | Pad flatness, bearing, and finish are specified; a crane reaches every set position. | Overhead conductors cross the approach with no de-energization window scheduled. |
| SR-02 | Expansion adjacency | The next unit position and its power and cooling paths are reserved on the plan today. | Phase two is assumed but undrawn, stranding the second unit across the parcel. |
| SR-03 | Allowable bearing pressure | A geotechnical report on this parcel supports the point and distributed loads as configured. | Bearing capacity is inferred from adjacent construction rather than measured here. |
| SR-03 | Seismic, wind, and anchorage | Design category is established and equipment anchorage details exist for that category. | The category surfaces after equipment selection, forcing anchorage and enclosure rework. |
| SR-03 | Flood, grading, and drainage | The pad sits above regulated flood elevation with drainage away from electrical equipment. | Mapped flood zone, or stormwater discharge needs a permit outside the schedule. |
| SR-04 | Physically diverse fiber entry | Two carrier paths enter via separate conduits and rights-of-way, verified on a route map. | Two carriers share one duct bank: logical diversity without physical diversity. |
| SR-04 | Latency and data gravity | Round-trip latency to users, data sources, and storage is measured and acceptable. | The site is chosen for power while the corpus sits behind a metro egress bottleneck. |
| SR-04 | Out-of-band management path | A management path independent of the production carrier exists for remote diagnosis. | Management shares the production carrier, so the outage removes the means to diagnose it. |
Checks 14 – 25
The four domains that price a site. Flags here rarely kill a project outright, but they are where unbudgeted cost accumulates.
| Domain | Check | Pass when | Flag when |
|---|---|---|---|
| SR-05 | Rejection method and design conditions | Dry or evaporative rejection is chosen against local design wet-bulb and the facility water class the hardware accepts. | The method is deferred to detailed design, leaving water demand and plot area unresolved.[5] |
| SR-05 | Water rights, makeup, and discharge | Makeup supply, blowdown discharge, and withdrawal permits are confirmed before evaporative rejection is assumed. | Evaporative rejection is assumed where water rights are contested; water per unit of energy is now a published operating metric.[12] |
| SR-05 | Heat reuse adjacency | An identified consumer of low-grade heat exists and its required return temperature is known. | Heat reuse is claimed as a benefit with no offtaker, which makes it a marketing line.[7] |
| SR-06 | Zoning, use, and noise | Zoning permits the use by right and property-line noise limits are achievable as equipped. | A conditional-use permit adds a public hearing calendar to the critical path. |
| SR-06 | Fire protection for IT equipment areas | Detection and suppression follow the IT-equipment fire standard, accepted in concept by the AHJ. | Suppression is assumed identical to ordinary commercial occupancy.[8] |
| SR-06 | Energy storage fire code | Stationary storage is sited and spaced to the energy-storage standard with a scoped hazard analysis. | Storage appears on the single-line diagram but not in the fire-code review.[9] |
| SR-07 | Transport route survey | A survey confirms turning radii, bridge ratings, clearances, and permits for the largest load. | The route is assumed from a mapping application, which is how projects find a low bridge on delivery day. |
| SR-07 | Laydown, staging, and rigging | Staging area, crane class, pick weights, and outrigger bearing are established before scoring. | Deliveries must stage on a public road, leaving no tolerance for delay. |
| SR-07 | Commissioning labor | Qualified trades and a testing authority are available locally in the scheduled window. | Trades must be imported; staffing scarcity remains a persistent operator concern in survey data.[4] |
| SR-08 | Perimeter and access control | Perimeter, lighting, cameras, and credentialed access are specified; utility and IT areas separated. | Security is deferred to an operations phase with no budget line. |
| SR-08 | Response time and remote hands | A qualified responder reaches the site inside the defined response window at any hour. | The nearest qualified technician is hours away with no local support agreement. |
| SR-08 | Reliability basis and maintenance access | Alarm routing and the electrical reliability basis follow recognized continuous-power practice, and components isolate without stopping compute. | Redundancy is described in tier marketing language with no single-line analysis.[11] |
A flag is not a rejection but an unpriced item. A parcel with four priced flags beats one with no flags and an unanswered interconnection question.
25
Checks across eight domains
In the product
A factory-built unit removes no domain from this list, but it moves work off the site into a controlled environment. Cooling, power distribution, and enclosure integration are tested before delivery, narrowing the site question to interfaces: a pad, a service point, a fiber entry, a heat-rejection connection. Each PODOS Pod is designed as a standardized 1 MW building block and designed for 128 GPUs, so SR-01 is scored against a known unit load rather than a moving estimate.
That shifts weight onto SR-07: transport, laydown, and rigging become primary, because the delivery is the construction. It is also why interconnection dominates the timeline — PODOS targets a 90-day window from order to commissioning for a standard unit, which only helps on a site whose energization date can meet it.
See the power architecture behind SR-01 and direct-to-chip liquid cooling behind SR-05. The deployment model covers moving from a scored checklist to an operating unit, and site and power readiness is the stage that picks SR-01 up; use cases show which workloads justify which compromises; and modular vs traditional AI data centers covers the build decision. Terms sit in the AI infrastructure glossary.
HONEST LIMITS
This is a screening instrument for siting megawatt-scale AI compute. It is the wrong tool in five common situations.
QUESTIONS
A structured site assessment across the eight domains that decide whether compute can be energized at a location: power and interconnection, space and pad, structural, network, water and heat rejection, permitting, logistics, and security. Each item scores pass or flag, and every flag becomes a cost and a date.
Interconnection timing. A site can have adequate land, structure, fiber, and cooling water and still be unusable because the utility cannot energize the load inside the project schedule.
Enough for mechanical and electrical overhead above IT load plus the density trajectory of the hardware, not day-one nameplate. Operator survey data shows fleet rack densities still climbing, so headroom sized to today's racks ages badly.
No. It is a screening instrument that decides which sites deserve paid engineering. Geotechnical borings, utility system-impact studies, environmental review, and stamped structural calculations all sit downstream of it.
Bring the energization date, the heat-rejection method, and the transport route survey. The configurator walks the same variables an engineering review would.