Arcova, a Charlotte, North Carolina cybersecurity and AI consulting firm backed by M|C Partners, launched an integrated data center development service that runs from site selection through day-two operations, SiliconAngle reported. The company claims the bundled model strips up to 18 months off development cycles and between $60 million and $200 million in transition costs per build. Jerome Farquharson, Managing Director and Senior Executive Adviser at Arcova, leads the offering.
The pitch targets the handoffs. Site selection, power studies, design, construction, and operations usually pass between separate firms, and each transition burns weeks. Arcova folds them under one roof and bakes in cybersecurity and compliance aligned to ISA/IEC 62443 and NERC CIP standards from the start.
Farquharson points to interconnection as the slowest stretch. Connecting a large load to the grid can add three to four years to a construction timeline. Transformer and transmission lead times now run 66 to 120 months, and the interconnection studies that precede them take 18 to 27 months when done by hand. Arcova uses AI to compress those studies, which is where a chunk of the claimed 18 months comes from.
That tracks with what developers keep running into. We have written about how power grid constraints set the pace of data center development and how switchgear procurement sits on the critical path. Power arrival is the milestone everything else orbits.
Squeezing 18 months out of a build compresses the cooling procurement and commissioning window by the same amount. A plant that once had a comfortable runway now has to be ready the moment energization clears. That math favors pre-engineered liquid cooling skids and factory-integrated CDUs over field-built plants assembled on site.
The thermal load makes the timing unforgiving. As rack densities climb past 100 kW, liquid cooling becomes a physical requirement, and a cold-plate loop cannot be improvised in the field after the racks are powered. Cooling capacity has to land in lockstep with the megawatts. Arcova can carve months out of the schedule, and the CDUs, manifolds, and heat rejection have to show up factory-tested and ready to flow on the same compressed clock.