IT Consulting is Not Having a Good Time

Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing

The Motley Fool

Investing, Business

4.3 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Data centers might have a climate problem. With more than 80% of data centers worldwide in regions at high risk of drought, flooding, or wildfires. The implication of these trillions in investment being at elevated risk to weather related disasters could have some major downstream issues. Pluis, a dive into Accenture’s earnings and the challenges facing the IT consulting industry.Listeners, we want your voices heard. The SEC is proposing that companies cut their regular reporting in half to two times a year. We think that's a mistake for individual investors.The SEC will take public comments on this issue until July 6th. We want to #savethe10q. Go to https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/06/15/motley-fool-save-the-10q/ to read our full statement and learn how to submit a public comment to the SEC.Companies discussed: META, TSMC, SPCX, TSLA, BMI, ITRI, VRT, ACN, EXLS, GLOB, IBMHost: Tyler CroweGuests: Matt Frankel, Jon QuastlEngineer: Bart Shannon Disclosure: Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. We’re committed to transparency: All personal opinions in advertisements from Fools are their own. The product advertised in this episode was loaned to TMF and was returned after a test period or the product advertised in this episode was purchased by TMF. Advertiser has paid for the sponsorship of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The SaaS Apocalypse was the wrong apocalypse today on Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.
0:12.2	Welcome to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. I'm your host, Tyler Crowe, and today I'm joined by
0:18.0	longtime Fool contributors, Bat Frankel, and John Quast. So we're going to get into
0:22.4	the kind of decline, I guess, if you will, of the IT services consulting industry over the past
0:29.1	couple of years based on Accenture's earnings that were released earlier today. And we're also going to do
0:34.6	something a little bit different. It's a special message from Molly Fool at the end here. But we're going to start today with a recent report on how climate
0:42.5	could be a much bigger factor for data centers than originally thought. Now, Matt, you
0:47.6	originally brought this idea to the table with us. So what was the market missing about data
0:53.5	centers that this report was bringing out?
0:56.1	Yeah, so there's a study by First Street that was released today.
0:58.5	It analyzed 97 different data center markets around the world.
1:02.1	So the headline is that nearly 90% of our global data center capacity today, not what's being built,
1:07.9	is at an elevated risk from climate-related hazards.
1:11.5	Think flooding,
1:16.9	think windstorms, wildfires. So most underwriting, when you're buying insurance for real estate, it still uses historical data, which isn't doing a good job of predicting how climate
1:22.2	events perform today. I know John lives in Florida. This is why a lot of insurers have exited
1:26.4	Florida because the past
1:27.8	looking data isn't doing a good job. So data centers are generally expected to operate for 20 to 30 years.
1:34.8	So this could become a big problem, especially as we rely more heavily on data centers for all of our
1:40.5	AI infrastructure needs. So some of the most exposed markets are international, like Asia-Pacific is the worst.
1:47.2	But Northern Virginia, which we would call the data center capital of the United States,
1:51.5	has an above-average level of exposure here.
	...

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