The impact of MANGOS on the future of real estate

Beyond FAANG: what are MANGOS and why does it matter?

For much of the last decade, global markets were defined by FAANG. Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google drove outsized equity returns and reshaped how space was used. Retail moved online, logistics scaled rapidly, and offices adjusted around platform-led work.

That framing now feels dated, influence is moving towards a different group of companies focused less on consumer platforms and more on the infrastructure behind artificial intelligence. MANGOS, made up of Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI and SpaceX, captures this evolving shift.

The change matters for real estate because the next phase of growth is less about user interfaces and more about the physical systems that support compute, energy and connectivity.

MANGOS interconnected dependency

What stands out about this group is how connected it is. These firms do not operate as separate occupiers in the traditional sense. They rely on each other.

AI labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI depend on enormous volumes of compute, largely enabled by Nvidia hardware and hyperscale infrastructure from the likes of Google and SpaceX, with the recently reported deal between Anthropic and SpaceX’s Colossus data centres for a reported fee of $1.25bn per month.

At the same time, new layers of infrastructure are emerging, SpaceX is a useful example, no longer just a Rocket company, they’re building out the Starlink internet network, connecting remote areas with ultrafast internet, disrupting the traditional providers and unlocking new markets.

The rise of shared AI infrastructure

The direction of travel is clear. Compute capacity is becoming a shared resource, and increasingly one that is provisioned across a network rather than contained within a single site.

It is entirely plausible that future AI demand is met through a mix of terrestrial data centres and distributed infrastructure, with companies effectively renting capacity from one another. Early concepts such as orbital data centres point to how far this could extend over time, SpaceX is planning to launch their first one in the next 12 months.

From occupancy to connectivity: how AI is changing real estate

For real estate, that changes the role of assets. Buildings are no longer just occupied by a single tenant. They sit within a wider system, value is derived from how well they ‘plug’ into power, data and supply chains, rather than just location and rent.

The most visible impact of this shift is the surge in data centre demand. AI is driving a step change in requirements, McKinsey report that, global capacity is expected to grow at around 19 to 22 percent per year to 2030, potentially taking demand above 200 gigawatts.

In the UK, this is already feeding through into the market. Oxford Economics report, the number of data centres has increased more than fourfold since 2000. Over 59 billion dollars of investment has been committed since 2023, with capacity expected to more than double by 2030. These are no longer fringe assets, they are competing directly with logistics and industrial uses for land, power and planning priority.

Power is now the critical constraint

Data centres can use between 10 and 50 times more electricity per square metre than typical commercial space, that is forcing development into locations with available grid capacity, often outside established markets.

It is also pulling real estate closer to energy infrastructure, with developers needing to think about power generation as well as occupation. Alongside this sits a new wave of advanced manufacturing – demand for AI chips and supporting hardware is driving the need for highly specialised facilities in attractive capital markets.

SpaceX brings these trends together. Its footprint now spans manufacturing, R&D and data infrastructure. It shows how these companies are becoming infrastructure providers, not just occupiers. An example being the 11 million square foot Colossus 1 Data Centre in Memphis Tennessee which made headlines for its deployment speed, the first cluster taking only 19 days to get up and running, typically this would take many months.

What does this mean for real estate investors and developers?

The scale of capital flowing into this is significant.

Technology firms spent over 400 billion dollars on bricks and mortar data centre investment in 2025, and that number is forecast to rise. This is not a typical cycle. It is a structural shift in how the digital economy is evolving to meet demand.

For investors and developers, the opportunity is real but more selective. Performance will hinge less on traditional metrics and more on access to power, planning alignment and connectivity.

MANGOS is therefore more than a new acronym. It reflects a change in where value sits. Real estate is no longer just a backdrop to technology – be in no doubt, it is becoming a core part of it.