When Pacer ETFs launched its Data & Infrastructure Real Estate ETF (ticker: SRVR) back in 2018, the AI boom was still years away. The thesis was simpler then—streaming, e-commerce, the shift from 4G to 5G, and a world where more and more devices were demanding more and more internet. Nobody was talking about large language models and hyperscaler CapEx races. And yet, seven years later, SRVR finds itself squarely at the center of one of the most consequential infrastructure build-outs in modern history.
Sean O’Hara, President of Pacer ETF Distributors, joined The Wealth Advisor’s Scott Martin to discuss where the fund stands today—and why the original premise has only become more relevant with time.
Built Before the Buzz
SRVR was purpose-built for a world that hadn’t fully arrived yet. The fund seeks to track the Solactive GPR Data & Infrastructure Real Estate Index, offering exposure to publicly traded companies that own, operate, and maintain data centers, telecom towers, and related digital infrastructure. The fund launched in May 2018 with a straightforward idea: The internet was going everywhere, and the real estate underpinning it would be in perpetual demand.
What the team didn’t fully anticipate was how dramatically AI would accelerate the story. O’Hara acknowledges the irony with good humor—the fund was built on the right foundation, even if the most powerful catalyst was still on the horizon.
“We were sort of early on this,” he says. “We had AI as a part of the story, but it really wasn’t a ubiquitous part of it. So, here we are seven years later, everybody’s talking about AI.”
The underlying logic, of course, hasn’t changed. You can’t run AI at scale without data centers, and you can’t build data centers without the real estate, connectivity infrastructure, and power systems to support them. The portfolio reflects as much—data infrastructure giants such as Equinix and Digital Realty Trust sit among the top holdings, alongside telecom tower real estate investment trusts (REITs) like American Tower Corporation, with additional infrastructure names rounding out the top 10.
A Different Way to Approach AI Exposure
For investors who want AI exposure but are uneasy about valuations in the hyperscaler and semiconductor space, SRVR aims to offer a structurally different entry point. Rather than betting on whether NVIDIA or Microsoft, for example, will successfully monetize their massive capital expenditures, the strategy aims to be on the receiving end of all the spending—owning the infrastructure that makes AI physically possible, regardless of which technology company ultimately wins.
“You’re not going to have NVIDIA succeed or the hyperscalers succeed unless they have enough buildings to make it work,” says O’Hara says. “And that’s really what we’re trying to supply.”
The fund’s sector breakdown leans heavily into real estate, with additional allocations across communication services, industrials, information technology, energy, and utilities. The dividend yield reflects the income-generating nature of the underlying REIT-heavy portfolio—a characteristic that sets SRVR apart from pure-play tech funds chasing the same AI narrative.
“We’re on the receiver side of this equation,” O’Hara emphasizes. “There’s going to be spenders who are going to build out, and we’re going to be receiving those dollars and helping to build and construct and maintain those buildings.”
The Energy Problem No One Can Ignore
Perhaps the most significant evolution SRVR has undergone since launch is the deliberate addition of an energy component. As AI has made data center demand essentially insatiable, the question of how to power all of the infrastructure has become unavoidable—and the answer is increasingly clear: The grid alone won’t cut it.
Plugging massive data centers into existing power grids creates two compounding problems. Grid demand spikes, driving up electricity costs for everyday consumers. And grid reliability, which has never been perfect, becomes a critical vulnerability for infrastructure that simply cannot afford to go offline. Pacer’s response was to add a 20% sleeve to SRVR dedicated to what O’Hara calls “onsite, behind-the-grid power generation”—companies building the kind of always-available, self-contained power solutions that data centers need.
The names in that sleeve span those providing gas-powered generation and the early stages of small modular nuclear reactors. O’Hara mentions companies including Rolls Royce, Caterpillar, and GE Vernova as representative of the gas generation side. On the nuclear front, the vision is ambitious but grounded.
“Think about it like a nuclear reactor the size of like a midsize car,” he explains. “It’s really contained but can generate enough power to power a data center.”
The cost and reliability calculus behind going onsite rather than grid-dependent is straightforward—drawing power from the grid means absorbing its inefficiencies, its pricing volatility, and its outage risk, all of which bear risk for infrastructure running 24 hours a day. O’Hara sees onsite generation as the only solution.
“It’s going to be all onsite, behind-the-meter power generation because you can solve all the problems that way,” he says. “You don’t have the excess cost. You’re not putting a burden on the grid, so you’re not driving up regular people’s electricity prices. And the way that onsite power generation works is that you’re not going to have any outages that are directly related to the grid.” The energy sleeve, in other words, wasn’t added for thematic appeal—it was added because any serious projection of continued data center growth has to account for power. “That’s why we put that key component apart in the portfolio,” O’Hara adds.
And he anticipates momentum building. “I think what you’re going to see is a massive push, not only in the number of data centers that are built but a massive push in trying to solve this energy problem through the behind-the-meter piece of this,” he says.
Pairing SRVR With TRFK
An important feature of Pacer’s approach is that SRVR doesn’t try to do everything. The fund focuses on the physical layer—the buildings, the towers, the power. Recognizing a gap, the firm built a separate ETF, the Pacer Data and Digital Revolution ETF (ticker: TRFK), whose goal is to capture what’s inside the data center: chips, software, networking, cybersecurity, cooling, and automation.
The two funds cover different parts of the same story. “If you really wanted to get the end-to-end AI exposure without owning NVIDIA directly or without owning Google or Microsoft or Amazon, who are going to build all these data centers and hope to monetize that, you can get the building, the power, through SRVR, and then you can own the contents of the building through traffic, TRFK,” explains O’Hara.
Used together, SRVR and TRFK may offer a way to construct AI-themed exposure that’s more granular and more controlled than simply buying a broad tech ETF. SRVR handles the infrastructure; TRFK handles the equipment. Advisors can weight them according to where a client’s existing portfolio already has gaps, or use one as a more focused complement to existing positions.
A Precision Tool for Real Estate Allocations
Of course, not all real estate is created equal, and the divergence between segments has never been sharper—retail remains under pressure, office hasn’t found its footing, and multifamily supply is outpacing demand in market after market.
Data center REITs, by contrast, are absorbing capital at an extraordinary rate. “If you’ve got real estate exposure in your portfolio, which some people sort of maintain all the time, here’s a way to be more precise with your real estate exposure and say, ‘I’m going to really focus my portfolio on the real estate side on one thing, which is data centers,’” notes O’Hara.
Ultimately, the case O’Hara makes is about where the dollars are going—and who’s positioned to receive them. “If you want to play that sort of derivative exposure to the AI story and not have all your eggs in the basket of the hyperscalers, hoping that they will eventually turn this CapEx into profits, you can simply take a part of your exposure and say, ‘Here’s how I’m going to play AI with the data centers through an ETF that’s liquid and relatively inexpensive,’” he sums up.
With a total expense ratio of 0.49%—reduced from 0.60% as of August 2025—and meaningful daily implied liquidity, SRVR seeks to give advisors a cost-efficient, liquid way to pursue a thesis that started in the cloud era and has only grown more significant since. The fund launched when AI was on the verge of becoming a household term, added energy infrastructure before most were asking the power question, and continues to sit at the intersection of two of the most consequential capital deployment trends of the decade. Sometimes, being early just means having more time to be right.
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Additional Resources
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Disclosures
Before investing you should carefully consider the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. This and other information is in the prospectus. A copy may be obtained by visiting www.paceretfs.com or calling 1-877-337-0500. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing.
An investment in the Funds is subject to investment risk, including the possible loss of principal. Pacer ETF shares may be bought and sold on an exchange through a brokerage account. Brokerage commissions and ETF expenses will reduce investment returns. There can be no assurance that an active trading market for ETF shares will be developed or maintained. The risks associated with this fund are detailed in the prospectus and could include factors such as calculation methodology risk, concentration in real estate risk, currency exchange rate risk, equity market risk, ETF risks, foreign securities risk, geographic concentration risk, international operations risk, large and mid-capitalization investing risk, non-diversification risk, passive investment risk, real estate companies risk, REIT investment risk, sector risk, small-capitalization companies risk, tax risk, tracking risk, and/or special risks of exchange traded funds.
Solactive AG (“Solactive”) is the licensor of the Solactive GPR Data & Infrastructure Real Estate Index (the “Index”). The financial instruments that are based on the Index are not sponsored, endorsed, promoted or sold by Solactive in any way and Solactive makes no express or implied representation, guarantee or assurance with regard to: (a) the advisability in investing in the financial instruments; (b) the quality, accuracy and/or completeness of the Index; and/or (c) the results obtained or to be obtained by any person or entity from the use of the Index. Solactive reserves the right to change the methods of calculation or publication with respect to the Index. Solactive shall not be liable for any damages suffered or incurred as a result of the use (or inability to use) of the Index.
Weighted average market cap is the sum of each company’s weight multiplied by its market cap. Dividend yield is the weighted average of each underlying holdings dividend yield. There is no guarantee dividends will be paid. Price to funds from operations is a measure of the cash generated by a REIT; real estate companies use FFO as an operating performance benchmark. FFO is calculated by adding depreciation and amortization to earnings and then subtracting any gains on sales. The FTSE Nareit All Equity REITs Index is a free-float adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index of U.S. equity REITs. Constituents of the index include all tax-qualified REITs with more than 50 percent of total assets in qualifying real estate assets other than mortgages secured by real property. The GPR 250 Index is composed of the 250 most liquid listed property securities in the world. The GPR Pure Infrastructure Index Series includes companies that derive over 50% of their revenues by facilitating the movement of people, goods, energy and information by owning or operating a real asset. Power Generation Companies are global companies in the Small Modular Reactors, Nuclear Power, Power Infrastructure & Energy Systems, and Digital Infrastructure & Connectivity Systems sectors. Data and Infrastructure Real Estate Companies are global companies that generate earnings or revenues from real estate operations in the data and infrastructure real estate sectors.
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