Investor Watch: May 28, 2026

WATER RESOURCES

Hyperscale demand pushes limits and demands innovation. We talk to University of California Riverside Professor Shaolei Ren about his new report “Small Bottle, Big Pipe.” This expanded web edition also includes insights into a unique water technology accelerator in the Netherlands.

FLORIDA

Meet the investors bringing wealth, new plants and good jobs to the Sunshine State.

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KIO Data Centers’ facility in the Bogotá Free Trade Zone in Colombia was the company’s first venture into South America.
Photo courtesy of KIO Data Centers

Among several McKinsey reports issued over the past few weeks has been “The Case for Data Centers in Space,” an interview with Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston. It’s a topic that KIO Data Centers has on its collective mind too, as the company’s fast-growing portfolio of facilities across Mexico and Central America looks to connect with Lonestar Data Holdings “data embassies” in space. Read “For KIO Data Centers, Central America Is Destination and Launch Pad … Literally.”

Florida-based Lonestar in April launched StarVault, which it called the world’s first commercial space-based data storage service. This month it signed a NASA Space Act Agreement with the NASA Ames Research Center in California to establish “a framework for collaboration focused on advancing technologies and operational concepts supporting lunar data storage, resilient off-world compute infrastructure and next-generation space communications architectures.”

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The Danjiangkou Reservoir in Central China’s Hubei province is the water source for the middle route of the country’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project. China Daily reported in December 2024 that over the previous 10 years, the reservoir delivered about 68 billion cubic meters of clean water, benefiting more than 100 million people in 26 cities.
Photo courtesy of China Daily

If water and wastewater is top of mind, you’d do well to check out the series called “Waterline” from Reasons to be Cheerful, the news organization founded by former Talking Heads front man David Byrne. Byrne himself authored the most recent two installments earlier this month, including a piece with the Byrnean headline “Could This Fish Be a Notebook?” The series is backed by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation, whose broader work on various aspects of water can be discovered here.

Photo courtesy of SkillsUSA

Top career and technical education students from across the country get to work in the framing carpentry competition last June at the SkillsUSA Championships. This year’s championships take place next week (June 1-5) at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, where more than 6,800 state champions will compete in 115 skilled and leadership competitions, making it one of the largest hands-on workforce development events in the world.

As in past years, Site Selection will be on site to cover the event and to follow up with a report on top states and top institutions by medal count. Read our 2025 story and our reports from 2024 and 2023 to see who keeps rising to the top.