Duos Edge AI seals $111m hyperscaler colocation deal in Columbus
Duos Edge AI, a subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Duos Technologies Group, has signed a five-year colocation agreement with an unnamed investment-grade hyperscaler to provide 10 MW of critical IT-load capacity at its Columbus, Georgia campus. The contract is valued at more than $111 million over its term and is expected to become operational in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The deal doubles contracted capacity at the Columbus site. A previously announced initial 10 MW deployment at the same campus is expected to begin generating revenue in August 2026, meaning the facility will reach 20 MW of total contracted deployment before the year is out. Duos described this as its full confirmed contracted deployment for 2026.
The deal
Duos completed a $55 million capital raise to support acquisition of the Columbus facility and to fund the infrastructure required to fulfil both deployments. The company's stated model is to own the underlying real estate and develop supporting infrastructure, converting deployed capital into long-term contracted recurring revenue rather than operating as a pure lease-pass-through colocation provider.
Chief executive Doug Recker said the Columbus campus gives the company "the ability to rapidly deploy high-density AI infrastructure while generating durable recurring revenue," adding that the model is intended to position Duos to meet growing customer demand and create long-term shareholder value. The hyperscaler counterparty was not named in the release, though Duos described it as investment-grade, a term that typically signals a publicly rated corporate or sovereign entity.
Market context
Edge colocation is a crowded and rapidly evolving segment, with established players such as Edgecore, EdgeConneX and a growing tier of regional operators competing alongside the hyperscalers' own distributed infrastructure programmes. Demand for high-density AI compute at the edge is being driven by inference workloads that require low latency and local data residency, particularly in sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing and defence.
Duos positions its edge data centres within 12 miles of end users, a closer proximity than conventional wholesale colocation, and claims a 90-day deployment cycle. Whether that speed advantage is repeatable at scale across multiple sites will be a key question for investors as the company moves beyond its first campus. The $55 million raise and the $111 million contracted revenue figure suggest the company is seeking to build a balance-sheet-heavy, infrastructure-ownership model rather than an asset-light managed-services play.
Regulatory and financial read-across
As a Nasdaq-listed small-cap, Duos Technologies Group is subject to SEC disclosure obligations, and the forward-looking nature of the contracted revenue figure warrants scrutiny: the release notes that revenue recognition depends on deployment timelines meeting the Q4 2026 schedule. Investors will also note that the hyperscaler counterparty's identity has not been disclosed publicly, limiting independent assessment of credit quality despite the investment-grade characterisation.
More broadly, US data-centre development is facing increasing scrutiny over power procurement and grid interconnection timelines. A 20 MW campus in Columbus, Georgia sits within the Southern Company service territory, a region that has seen significant data-centre demand growth. Securing adequate grid capacity ahead of deployment remains a material execution risk for any operator scaling quickly in the south-eastern US.