Earnings Labs

DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (DBRG)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 20, 2024

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to DigitalBridge Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Severin White. Please begin.

Severin White

Analyst

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the DigitalBridge fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Speaking on the call today from the company is Marc Ganzi, our CEO, and Jacky Wu, our CFO. We're also joined by Tom Mayrhofer, who will be transitioning into the CFO role during the second quarter of this year, as previously announced. I'll quickly cover the safe harbor and then we can get started. Some of the statements that we make today regarding our business operations and financial performance may be considered forward-looking and such statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. All information discussed on this call is as of today, February 20, 2024, and DigitalBridge doesn't intend and undertakes no duty to update it for future events or circumstances. For more information, please refer to the risk factor discussed in our most recent Form 10-K to be filed with the SEC for the year ending December 31st, 2023. Great. So we're going to start with Marc summarizing the progress we've made on our key priorities in 2023. Jacky will walk us through our new simplified financial results and turn it back over to Marc to lay out our 2024 business plan. With that, I'll turn the call over to Marc Ganzi, our CEO. Marc?

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Thanks, Severin. Before we look ahead to 2024 in our third section, executing the digital playbook, I'd like to recap 2023 and summarize on how we delivered on our key priorities for the following year. As I like to say, it's the three things that matter, fundraising, simplification, and performance down at our portfolio companies. And let's put this report in a broader context, because look, at the end of 2023, we have successfully completed a multi-year transformation at DigitalBridge, taking a diversified read across five real estate verticals and refocusing that business exclusively on the digital infrastructure ecosystem where my team has been successfully investing and operating for over 25 years. Along the way, on this $80 billion transformation, we harvested real value for DigitalBridge shareholders, from the sale of legacy assets while continuing to grow, what I believe is the leading global asset management platform focused on digital infrastructure. So let's start with fundraising, where we saw terrific growth in fourth quarter. The combination of new capital formation, contribution from the InfraBridge acquisition, and FEEUM activation drove our fee revenues up 59% year-over-year and fee related earnings in our investment management segment up over 64% year-over-year. This is really industry leading growth. Much of that growth was fueled by new capital formation, $7.7 billion in new capital formed since January of last year through today, including the closing of over $1 billion in our inaugural credit strategy, which is a key piece of the multi-strategy asset manager that we are building here today at Digital Ridge. Next up, simplify. This really was front and center in 2023. De-consolidating our operating segments successfully with DataBank and Vantage SDC both moving off the books. We got this done. And as a part of that process, monetized a ton of value…

Jacky Wu

Analyst

Thank you, Marc, and good morning everyone. As a reminder, in addition to the release of our full year 2023 earnings, we filed a supplemental financial report this morning, which is available within the shareholder section of our website. Starting on Page 15, our key operating and financial metrics have increased significantly during 2023, led by our investment management segment, which continues to grow at an industry-leading rate. This quarter marks the end of our successful corporate transformation with our sector-leading investment management business at scale and our corporate structure simplified. More importantly, recurring distributable earnings and free cash flows continue to trend positively. We foresee this powerful momentum to continue in 2024 and beyond as the company continues to asset manage, realize superior returns, and fundraise off of this track record, which drives significant yield and flow through to distributable earnings and free cash flow. Turning to Page 16, the company's distributable earnings was $18 million, or $0.10 per share, highlighted by new fee revenues from the launch of our latest flagship fund, DigitalBridge Partners III, or DBP III, which had its first closing on November 1st. Assets under management increased to $80 billion in the fourth quarter, representing a 52% growth over the same period last year. Fee earning equity under management increased to $33 billion, which is a 47% increase from the same period last year. AUM and FEEUM growth have primarily been driven by capital raised in our new strategies and fee-paying co-invests as well as the InfraBridge acquisition which closed at the beginning of 2023. Our fundraising pipeline continues to be very strong, fueled by new commitments to our latest flagship fund, DBP III, and we anticipate making significant progress with our dynamic product offerings in 2024. Moving to Page 17, with the substantial growth…

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Thanks, Jacky. Well, look, here we are today, and the thing that most excites us about finishing up our transformation is really the bandwidth that frees up for all of us to focus exclusively on scaling the DigitalBridge platform. That's what our 2024 business plan is all about, taking the strong momentum we've already built up and accelerating the DigitalBridge flywheel. And Look, as I said earlier today, it starts with fundraising, architecting investment solutions that are tailored to our clients' needs. This is what allows us to form capital sufficient to fuel the AI revolution. The second priority for 2024 centers on our portfolio companies, where our budgets today call for over $15 billion of success-based mission-critical greenfield construction. This is CapEx that's being deployed at increasingly attractive development yields as rents have risen and our growth rates have risen across our data center businesses and the other three verticals. I'm also excited about a significant pipeline of new opportunities to back great management teams and the launch of the next generation of investment platforms at DigitalBridge. The third cog in our flywheel is all about scaling DigitalBridge at the corporate level. That starts with driving corporate operating leverage, improving our earnings and cash flows and ultimately redeploying that capital into the highest return opportunities for DigitalBridge shareholders. I haven't been shy about this. Whether it's developing new investment management products or going out and buying great investment management platforms, we know how to buy and build, and we will execute that strategy in 2024. So look, I'm incredibly excited about what lies ahead for this year. It's a real opportunity for us to finally go on offense. So let's cover some of those priorities in a little more detail. Next slide, please. Let's start with fundraising. New capital…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Michael Elias with TD Cowen. Please proceed.

Michael Elias

Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Two, if I may. First, Marc, you talked about a historically challenging fundraising year in 2024. Just curious as we enter the year, how you've seen the fundraising environment evolve, are you seeing LPs come back to the tables with more appetite for digital infrastructure? Curious your thoughts there. And then second, on the data center side, great to see the CapEx that you're deploying into the sector. But one of the headwinds that we see is availability of power. I'm just curious, as you think about the state of play of the grid globally, what do you think from the ability to access incremental power at the data center level and as part of that, how you're thinking about ensuring the long-term access to power at your portfolio company level? Thanks.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Well, first of all, good morning and thank you. Let's start with fundraising. Look, the fundraising environment is tough. I've been out on the road the first six weeks of the year, and I would say investor interest is high, investor interest is strong, engagement is there. The calendar is plenty deep with meetings. And we've got a lot of investors that are working through various products with us, whether they're doing on-site due diligence here in South Florida, or whether they're in the data room, or whether we're negotiating final terms. We've got a deep pipeline. As I mentioned last time, we have over 200 investors engaged on our current flagship strategy. So we feel very good about the trajectory of the fundraising for our flagship product. Nothing has really changed there. And then I would say interest in new products is up as well, particularly credit. Some of the things that we're doing in our digital ventures group is going quite well, particularly around co-investments. We had a fantastic partnership with Intel. We went out to raise some co-invest capital, and we were oversubscribed to the tune of 2x to 3x. So good ideas, good products, good execution. And certainly, I'll finish with one thing, which is DPI. We've had a great track record of returning capital to investors. We've returned over $4 billion of capital to investors in the last 18 months. We're returning more capital to investors this year. We have a series of closings and a series of assets that are in strategic reviews. So we've done a really good job of listening. I think you have to be in this environment, two words matter, listen and patience. And I think we've been very patient and in due course, we've been rewarded. And I think…

Michael Elias

Analyst

Thanks for all the color, Marc. Much appreciated.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Thanks, Michael.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Jade Rahmani with KBW. Please proceed.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst

Thank you very much. In terms of the fundraising outlook, would you say that there's also alongside a slowdown in fundraising increased competition in the verticals that DigitalBridge target? To what extent is that a factor in your outlook?

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Well, I think if it's -- remember there's two dimensions to this alternative asset management business. One is we go out and we compete for capital across our product set. So we've got to go out every day and compete. And I think, inside this quarter, we demonstrated our ability to compete. And I think, to be honest, we sort of punched above our weight class, if you look at some of the performance of the other alternative asset managers in terms of their fundraising. Second, down at the portfolio company level, we've been competing for 30 years. So that's a playing field that I feel very comfortable on. I like competing for new BTS orders. I like competing for new small cell orders. I like competing for new data center capacity. And I think in that regard, as you heard today, down at the portfolio company level, we experienced organic cash flow growth year-over-year up across all four verticals. And our portfolio companies are going out and winning. Switch had an incredible first year under our stewardship in terms of new bookings. Zayo had a tremendous year and a great turnaround, EBITDA up 6%, 7% in a tough macro, demonstrating our capability to get out there and go compete and ultimately deliver a business plan. So look, we're going to compete every day. We compete at the portfolio company level. We have to compete for customers. I think what always gives me a fair bit amount of optimism is that the wallet that we go out and compete for, that piece that we take of the wallet is growing. And when you see the tailwinds that we have had the last decade and you look at the tailwinds we have in front of us for the next 10 years,…

Jade Rahmani

Analyst

Thank you. In terms of the guidance range, looking beyond what you provided to 2024, I believe the last FEEUM target was $49 billion for 2025. So if $7 billion is now the rate of organic growth and fundraising, should we be thinking more along the lines of $44 billion, $45 billion as a reasonable target for 2025?

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Look, we haven't put out those targets. What we have done is given a specific set of parameters around what we feel we will deliver this year. I think that was pretty clear from the earnings presentation. As we've made this final transition from diversified REIT into alternative asset manager, part of that transition this year is now reporting like our peer group. And so you have to maybe flush a little bit of the old way we reported, which was more in a re-cadence and more based on run rate to now actually going to what our peer set does in the alternative asset management space, which is reporting on actuals. And so ultimately, we plan to give that level of comfort to investors on our Investor Day, which we're planning for May. We'll have that date for you shortly. In March, we hope you'll come down here and show up in person or you can show up virtually. Either way, I think it'll be a very instructive day for us and with our investors and of course with all of you in the analyst community. So we look forward to that.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst

Well, would you say is there any reason for a re-acceleration in growth in 2025? Let's say rates moderate, and that part of the headwind subsides. That could add to LP investor confidence in deploying capital. Is there a potential for a re acceleration?

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Well, look, an acceleration for us would be amplified fundraising, right? Because that ultimately leads to FEEUM and FRE and distributed learnings. So, we've given you a $7 billion guide for fundraising this year. It flows through very evenly to the rest of the key metrics that you know about our business. I don't think there's any magic to ‘25 versus ‘24 versus ‘26. I think we're in a very steady cadence in terms of how we're delivering on existing products for investors, which is that key metric DPI, returning capital back to investors. I think everyone needs to understand that if you return capital back to investors, you then can ask for more new capital. But I think investors are becoming a lot more hawkish around DPI. And in terms of giving new commitments, it is heavily linked to your ability to perform for them. So right now in this year, we're focused obviously on the three products that we're fundraising for, that $7 billion that we talked about. We're very focused on portfolio company performance. We're very focused on the exits that we have planned for this year and delivering great outcomes for investors. And then that gives us the ability to go out and fundraise in ‘25 and ‘26. And as you can tell from the cadence of credit and InfraBridge and our flagship strategy, there is a pretty, as you can start to notice in pattern recognition, there's a logical progression from when you launch new products. Also, I want to be clear, we have not left M&A off the table for this year. We do think there's adjacencies in digital alternative asset management that we do not have in our quiver today. So we're going to go out and think thoughtfully about how to grow that, whether it's standing up new teams organically, or whether it's buying an existing platform like we did with InfraBridge. We're going to grow our asset base and we're not afraid to use M&A as an ability to do that. And we have lots of different ideas and targets there. So there is the opportunity for outperformance and acceleration in ’25, ‘26. I want to be clear with you, it's not interest rate driven. Everyone seems to think that interest rates are the magic elixir. It's not. The elixir in the alternative asset management space, if you're a serious CEO running a serious company, is returning capital to investors. DPI matters. Because at the end of the day, the organizations that deliver and bring capital back to LPs are the organizations that have the ability to ask for new capital commitments. That to me is really the focal point of what we're trying to get done this year.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst

That's a great point about it's not only interest rate driven. I wanted to ask a follow-up. I don't know if you'd be comfortable answering it, but looking at the FRE and translating it to a per share distributable EPS basis, what range do you think might be reasonable?

Jacky Wu

Analyst

Yeah, we're not guiding to EPS. I mean, obviously the other factors that drive it from FRE down to EPS or distributable earnings will be our interest expense as well as preferred equity. But at this point in juncture, given the realizations and other things that matter to distributable earnings and EPS, we're at this point not guiding to that right now.

Jade Rahmani

Analyst

Thank you.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Thank you, Jade.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Ric Prentiss with Raymond James. Please proceed.

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, everybody.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Hey, Ric, how are you?

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Great, thanks. First, thanks for getting us to the simpler story. I know it took a lot of work and it was busy. And hats off Jacky, it's been great working with you and we welcome you to beginning to know Tom better.

Jacky Wu

Analyst

Thanks, Ric.

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Questions. Marc, I want to follow along. Obviously fundraising is a key topic. So and first also thank you for getting the calendar year guidance. We appreciate that ‘24 is a calendar year guidance, so check box on that one, too. When we think about the $7 billion in fresh capital in ‘24, how should we think about the pacing through the year on that one? And then on the realization, the DBP I, DBP II, like you said, DPI is important. How should we think about what that pacing of those returning capital to investors should look like? And the next piece of the question too is, how should that return to capital affect kind of our thoughts longer term ‘25, ‘26, ‘27?

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

So I don't think there's a specific algorithm between DPI and what investors bring back to us. I want to make sure you guys don't feel like there's a direct correlation there. I think that, we've delivered about a little over $4 billion of DPI. I think it's $4.6 billion of DPI in the last 18 months. We have scheduled to deliver another $5 billion of DPI this year. Could go a little bit higher. We'll see. It's really focused on a couple of our continuation funds, some of the legacy DigitalBridge funds that we had. Our returning capital right now, there's some exits in Fund I. There's some InfraBridge exits. So we've got a bunch of stuff teed up. And we'll continue to update you each quarter as we deliver that DPI. I think on the $7 billion this year, we've been pretty clear that the bulk of that will be flagship. So we've got closings that are scheduled for the end of this month. We've got a big closing scheduled for March. We have rolling closings, Ric, pretty much every 30 days. And remember, we're no longer a one product shop, right? So between co-investments, continuation vehicles, the flagship product, our credit strategy, our late stage venture growth strategy, we've got an ample amount of products in the market that there's always a closing happening at some point in time. So the key to that is just updating you guys on a quarterly basis about how much we raise inside the quarter, and then ultimately how that offsets against our annual objectives. So, so far, good start to the year. Good January, right? February's lining up pretty good. March is lining up very strong. And everything seems to be as we have planned it. As I mentioned earlier,…

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

It might be a little premature, but Tom, you're in the background there on the call. It sounds like you've got extensive experience in the alt world. What are you seeing so far as kind of the pros and cons of DigitalBridge versus others in the alt asset manager space? And what do you think the market's missing as far as people look at DigitalBridge?

Tom Mayrhofer

Analyst

It's probably a little premature for me to comment on that specifically, but what attracted me to DigitalBridge is that we have a focus and an area of expertise that differentiates us. And so that's what attracted me here. I think that's fundamentally what's important when you think about investing capital.

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Hey, Marc, you've obviously been around a lot longer, we've known each other, gosh, 20, 25 years. What do you think are the pros and cons on what you guys now are the simpler story, and what is the market not giving you credit for yet maybe?

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Well, Ric, I think we've been pounding the table now for three years and I've been at your conferences quite a bit, being an evangelist of the asset light digital infrastructure player. And even though we've taken an alternative asset management skin, deep at our core, our capillaries, our heart, our brain is that of an operator. And when you're asset light, Ric, you can go faster, right? And when you're asset light, you can form capital quicker and you can take wallet and I love doing that. I love competing and I like to go out and I love it when our portfolio companies go win the key jump balls because we can move a little quicker and we can form a little capital. And make no mistake in AI infrastructure, you've got to have a big wallet if you're going to go compete for some of this business. So we're out there doing that. And as you can tell from the likes of Equinix and DLR, they're out there trying to form capital away from their public balance sheets because they have to. It's the only way they can survive, which is why DLR did the business, did the deal with Blackstone and why Equinix did their deal with GIC. I think it's sort of proof positive that what we're doing is the new thinking in infrastructure, a more evolved way to invest in digital infrastructure, which is why our investor base has some crossover. You see traditional infrastructure, TMT investors in our share price. And then you see obviously folks that hold other alternative asset managers moving in to our stock in the last 90 days, because they understand what we're doing and the fact that we are the next-gen alternative asset manager, lean, focused, flywheel, product-centric,…

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Makes sense. Thanks, everybody. Jacky, again, best wishes.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Thanks, Ric.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Richard Choe with JPMorgan. Please proceed.

Richard Choe

Analyst

Great. I just wanted to follow up on the $11 billion in data center CapEx. What kind of return rate should we be expecting from those investments? And I think there's some worry that we're kind of entering this peak data center demand environment. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the sustainability that you see? I know you went over a little bit on your pipeline, but in the past, pipelines don't always turn out to what they should be.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Yeah. No, Richard, as always, you're asking the right question, right? I think we should always be concerned at the peak, not the trough. And so having -- like you, having been around this sector for three decades, I mean, I've watched the peaks and the valleys in cell towers, I've watched in small cells, I've watched in fiber, I've now watched two leasing cycles in data centers. And I think, Richard, you'd probably agree with me, we're in a third cycle now, since the inception of the industry where we're at a peak. I actually will take the view that I think rental rates, Richard, will continue to go up. I do think it is very market specific. Given that we are a global operator, we do operate in five different continents, just to be clear. We've got operations in Africa, got operations in Asia, Latin America, the US, and Europe. And so we have a pretty good purview of what's happening out there. And certain markets, lease rates are up 10%, 11%. Certain markets, lease rates are up 25%, 30%, 40%. And Richard, it is heavily correlated to power and power availability. And so as certain markets, like for example, the flat markets or Northern Virginia or Santa Clara, or even out of Hillsboro, these are capacity constrained markets where the landlord has the advantage. And how you use that advantage is really important, and I won't get into the strategy of pricing and what we do, it's not appropriate. But our 5 gigawatt pipeline is super qualified in the respects that we have land, we have permits, we have will serve letters, and we're prepared to deliver that capacity. That 5 gigawatt number last year, just to put it in proper context, our pipeline this time last…

Richard Choe

Analyst

Thank you for the color.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Thanks, Richard.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Eric Luebchow with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.

Eric Luebchow

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, Marc. So maybe you could touch on kind of the buy versus build equation across your key industry verticals. It seemed like you're more focused on building via CapEx and greenfield in 2024. Wanted to confirm if you've seen any kind of changes in transaction multiples across your key verticals.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Yeah, thanks. Look, we're not bullish nor bearish on M&A versus building. I think inevitably we skate to where we think we can achieve the best IRR. And so for right now in data centers, it's built. Buying existing data center platforms are incredibly expensive. And the returns are incredibly tight because five or six infrastructure firms show up who claim to be in digital infrastructure and need to buy something. And so that's not a race we play in. It's not a place where we perform particularly well. So this is why we've been for years building these six platforms and building our construction pipeline and most importantly, building our partnerships with tower source providers. That's really been the magic for us. In that swim lane, we're focused on greenfield. I think if you look at towers, we've seen tower multiples retreat a little bit, not much, but there's been some value opportunities where we've dipped our toe in and we found an opportunity to do some tuck-in M&A and we do that discreetly and quietly and we don't do it with a lot of fanfare. So we are buying towers, but we're also building towers. We've got a big pipeline of towers in Europe with GD Towers with our friends at DT. Vertical Bridge has a monster pipeline of new BTS towers, but they're also engaging in M&A. EdgePoint has a big BTS pipeline of over a couple thousand towers for customers in three different countries in Southeast Asia. And ATP and MTP and Highline are all executing down in Latin America. So we're very busy. I would say our global built-to-suit pipeline is somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 towers today across all the different tower companies. That actually might be light, Truth be told. And then I…

Eric Luebchow

Analyst

Great, thanks. And maybe you could touch on kind of M&A opportunities within the alternative asset manager space. I mean, we saw a large transaction announced earlier this year between BlackRock and GIP. And just wondering if you think there's more consolidation opportunity to come in what your M&A pipeline may look like in terms of tuck-in and other asset management platforms?

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Good two questions. I was wondering when those were going to come. So on the first one, I mean, if you take a look at the two trades, the General Atlantic trade and the BlackRock trade, and then you look at KKR's acquisition of Angelo Gordon, I think you do see a pattern -- sorry TPG's acquisition of Angelo Gordon, you do see a pattern of M&A activity in the sector. I don't think that slows down. I think that'll continue. I think that what people are recognizing is when you have a good platform, you have one accounting system, one SEC reporting, one asset management platform, one fundraising team, you do get economies. What we've learned is you do get economies of scale as you get bigger. And having a multi-strategy approach, whether you're Ares, whether you're Apollo, whether you're Blackstone, that is the playbook. And different of our competitors choose to do different ways. Blackstone, by example, is very comfortable standing up a new product and growing through their own teams, they're really good at it. You see what Ares has done in both ways. They've done M&A and they've done it through greenfield and then obviously you see what BlackRock is doing as they move into alternatives. I think this will continue. And I do think there's a number of middle market infrastructure GPs that are subscale, that have looked at going to an IPO route, they realize they can't get there. It's tough to get public. We learned it the hard way in four years of building this business where it is. And so I think you will see more M&A activity in the space. Multiples are pretty hot right now. The GIP multiple was pretty rich. We think it was somewhere in the low 20s. Go figure for this year, sort of full impact of the FRE and FEEUM that GIP will deliver for BlackRock. So we think that Larry and the team did a smart acquisition and it gives BlackRock a whole new suite of products to sell to their clients. And same thing with General Atlantic in terms of what Bill Ford's trying to do in energy transition. And so everyone has good industrial logic to what we're doing. Our pipeline, we won't comment on it. We have a number of ideas that we're executing right now and we feel comfortable that we will in due course execute some of those ideas.

Eric Luebchow

Analyst

Great. Thank you, Marc.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Matt Niknam with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

Matt Niknam

Analyst

Hey, thanks so much for taking the question. One question, one housekeeping. On just the main question, you talked about obviously seeing early impacts of GenAI demand. Can you talk, Marc, maybe about how much data center leasing of late is tied directly to AI and when you may see this demand translating to more activity for your fiber and edge assets? And then on the housekeeping, I think there was reference in one of the footnotes around $40 million in catch-up fees this year. It appears it's pure margin. I'm just wondering if that's included in the guide for $335 million to $360 million in fee revenue for the year. Thanks.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

So first on catch-up fees, it's normal nomenclature for our business that when a LP joins a fund late, we have the ability because it's on committed capital. We have the ability to build those fees and we do so and Jacky and Tom and the team do a good job of doing that. The second question, can you repeat the second question again for Jacky and Tom's benefit? Thanks.

Matt Niknam

Analyst

Yeah, if it's included in the $335 million to $360 million fee revenue guide.

Jacky Wu

Analyst

Yeah, it is included. Yes.

Matt Niknam

Analyst

Yeah, thank you.

Jacky Wu

Analyst

And that's consistent with our benchmark peers.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

And the first part of the question, sorry?

Matt Niknam

Analyst

Yeah, first question was just on AI. So obviously you're seeing it in data center leasing. Just wondering…

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Yeah, yeah. So what I would say is, if you look across a 5 gigawatt pipeline today, last year AI was about 20% of our pipeline. I would say today, AI workloads probably constitute and AI ecosystem, right? So whether it's a CoreWeaver, or Nvidia, or an ARM or somebody like that, I'd say today it's probably about 40% of our pipeline. And then as it relates to when it will impact fiber and edge, it's already impacting fiber. I can tell you that. So we already are seeing data center connectivity demand that's being driven by those AI workloads. And some of that is existing fiber conduit that we're selling into. Some of that is new route architecture going into existing DigitalBridge data centers. And some of that is brand new de novo fiber that's going to a data center that's being self-performed by a customer. So never before has it been more important to be close for our cloud and AI customers on the fiber side. And we're pretty busy there. On the edge concept, we've actually been pretty clear. AI edge leasing is probably three to four years out, truth be told. I mean, right now we're leasing into big language-based models that are pretty -- a little less latency-sensitive is what I would say, but they're more focused on power density and the delivery of big, big workloads. So think 400 megawatts, 800 megawatts, a gig of power. I mean, these initial language based models need to be -- they don't need to be in data center alley. They don't need to be in the flap markets in Europe. They can be in other places. So with that less sensitivity, it does represent a good opportunity for us to build more fiber, but we're also building some of those workloads for our customers. So I think on the edge AI side or Generative AI edge, that'll be something that's probably more of like a, starting in ‘25, but really a ‘26, ‘27 and ‘28, kind of delivery story.

Matt Niknam

Analyst

Great, thanks so much and congrats again on the quarter.

Jacky Wu

Analyst

Thank you.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Thank you. Thanks, Matt, appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Marc Ganzi for closing comments.

Marc Ganzi

Analyst

Well, first of all, thank you to all of you, our investors, for your continued patience and support of what we're doing. We appreciate those of you in the last quarter that have joined our shareholder roster. We always appreciate new shareholders. And as we've made this transition and move into a new speaking circuit which starts today for us, we look forward to meeting with all of you and telling the story and giving you more visibility into what we're doing. Really excited about our upcoming Investor Day. We're looking forward. I hope all of you will take advantage of that. And again, the most important part of this call besides the results and the delivery is Jacky to my left here. I want to thank you, Jacky, for your partnership and friendship. I'm excited about what you're doing for us going forward. Jacky’s involved in a bunch of our portfolio companies, and he's vital to the performance of those assets. And I know, Jacky’s excited to get back to his roots a little bit and be down in the weeds with the deal teams, which he likes. That's something he's quite passionate about. And so aligning his passion with where he can be really useful to DigitalBridge shareholders is exciting. And, Tom, welcome to the room. Welcome to the conversation. Looking forward to partnering with you and telling our new transform story. So, thank you. That concludes our comments and I look forward to seeing all of you out on the conference circuit. Take care. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This will conclude our conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.