American Tower Corporation: 10-K Risk Factor Changes

Over the last five years, we have significantly expanded our data centers business, which is a much less mature business for us than our tower leasing operations. Our data centers segment represented 10% of our total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025. The business model for our data center business contains certain differences from our business model for our tower leasing operations, including those relating to customer base, competition, contract terms (including requirements for service level agreements regarding data center uptime and network performance), upfront capital requirements, ongoing capital improvements, expenditures required for maintenance of data center power, cooling and network equipment, landlord demographics, deployment and ownership of certain network assets, operational oversight requirements and government regulations. As we continue to invest in our data center segment, we may be required to commit significant operational and financial resources to data center developments, generally 12 to 18 months before securing customer contracts. Additionally, investments in data centers developments require a longer time to achieve stabilization and underwritten development yields than the development of new towers. If customer demand in our markets is insufficient once the data centers are built, we may have difficulty realizing expected or reasonable returns on these investments. Moreover, we rely on third parties, governmental entities and suppliers to provide sufficient power for our data centers and to support future expansion, which is different than our tower leasing operations. Difficulties in securing contracted energy or obtaining adequate capacity for future data center developments may adversely affect our operations, financial performance and customer relationships. Power constraints, delays, unfavorable contractual terms and increased costs from utility providers could limit our ability to identify suitable sites and expand, particularly as evolving technologies, such as AI, increase power requirements. Our ability to scale remains dependent on reliable energy access amid rising electrification trends and associated infrastructure challenges. Additionally, we are currently engaging in, or contemplating, data center expansions and new ground-up data center builds in new and existing markets. The construction projects associated with such expansion initiatives expose us to many risks that differ from those for our tower leasing operations, such as delays in site readiness, utility power and power grid constraints, the potential requirement for on-site power generation solutions where utility power is unavailable, lack of availability and delays for data center equipment, unexpected budget changes and unanticipated customer requirements that would necessitate alternative data center design, making our sites less desirable or leading to increased costs in order to make necessary modifications or retrofits. Construction projects are dependent on permitting from public agencies and utility companies. Any delay in permitting could affect our growth. While we do not currently anticipate any material long-term negative impact on our business due to construction delays, these types of delays and stoppages related to permitting from public agencies and utility companies could have an adverse effect on our revenue or growth. 19 19 19 Table of Contents Table of Contents Furthermore, we also may face pressure from certain stakeholders, such as the communities in which we operate, who are increasingly focused on climate change and shortages of power, land and water resources, which are different pressures than those faced by our tower leasing operations. Such pressure could lead to federal, state or municipal governments imposing more stringent regulations and requirements to control the growth and development of data centers in their communities. New builds and further expansion of data center operations in such markets are increasingly being evaluated and approvals, if required, may only be granted where we are not only able to demonstrate that our operations are efficient in their use of energy and water but also that they have and/or will bring positive and significant environmental, economic and social impact to their local community. We have service level commitments to substantially all of our data center customers, and interruptions, equipment damage or staffing challenges could impair our ability to meet these obligations and lead to potential claims. Because our data centers are critical to many customers’ operations, such failures could result in lost profits or other consequential damages and diminish customer confidence, impacting our ability to retain and attract business. Additionally, we rely on third-party providers for internet, telecommunications and utilities, and any failure by these providers could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.