Iron Mountain's survey says 86% of AI projects stalled; it signed 110 megawatts anyway

Iron Mountain·+1.47% — Iron Mountain, up 1.47 percent as of its last quote spent the weekend telling 240,000 customers that their AI projects are stuck, and its own stock is priced as if those projects will soon need somewhere to live ¹. On October 19, at the Gartner·+0.47% — Gartner, up 0.47 percent as of its last quote IT Symposium in Orlando, the records-storage REIT released The Information Supercycle, a survey↗ finding that 86% of organizations had an AI project delayed or canceled over data concerns in the past 12 months ¹.

The same ticker also holds 110 megawatts of new data-center signings from the first seven months of 2026, 75 of them in July alone ². One company, two businesses, and the survey describes both.

The stall is the product. Four in ten organizations burn at least 41% of an AI project's timeline on manual data preparation, only 39% keep data "digitized and structured," 56% blame disconnected systems and silos, and 53% still point to legacy formats or physical archives, the boxes Iron Mountain has warehoused since 1951 ¹.

"AI readiness is about much more than deploying the latest technology," said Varun Gupta, the company's senior vice president of global product and solutions marketing ¹. The cure has a seller, and the seller wrote the diagnosis.

The market pays for growth, not the cure

At $113.88 on October 20, Iron Mountain trades at 81.34 times earnings on a $33.9 billion market cap, with Jefferies·−1.12% — Jefferies, down 1.12 percent as of its last quote cutting its target to $135 from $147 on October 12↗ ³. The growth half is what carries that multiple: data-center, digital and asset-lifecycle businesses grew more than 50% in the second quarter, revenue hit $2.03 billion, and full-year guidance sits at $7.94–8.01 billion↗ ⁴.

The growth half also borrows. Debt has climbed from $14.1 billion in late 2023 to $19.6 billion, capital spending has outrun operating cash flow in 11 of the last 12 quarters, and the June notes cost a fixed 6.25% to 2035↗ ⁴.

The survey cuts both ways, and Iron Mountain published it

The 86% stalled projects are, in the bulls' telling, future demand for the storage-and-governance half. They are also the tenants for the 110 megawatts. If four in ten companies cannot finish preparing data, the leases signed in July fill slowly, and the $19.6 billion of debt waits for revenue that arrives late.

The November 5 print sorts it

Consensus expects $1.99 billion of revenue against $1.75 billion a year earlier, and EPS of $0.6120 against $1.32, a comparison the debt service makes unforgiving ³. Watch the data-center leasing line, and whether 75 megawatts in a month repeats while 86% of the market reports its projects frozen ³.

The other side is real

The bulls have a fair case: enterprises that cannot deploy AI still must fix the data underneath it, and 95% call data a top priority ¹. Deferred is not canceled. But a company cannot charge 81 times earnings for growth that its own research says is deferred, and collect a 6.25% coupon on the money building it, without the November numbers doing the talking ¹.