Energy Economics and Trade Risk Management of Data Center Waste Heat-Integrated Vertical Farming: A Public- Private Policy Finance Model for National Food Security

The rapid proliferation of hyper-scale artificial intelligence (AI) data centers has created unprecedented localized electrical and thermal loads, while global agricultural supply chains face compounding climate shocks. This paper proposes a unified, multi-systemic framework integrating hyper-scale Data Center HVAC waste heat recovery, Small Modular Reactor (SMR) / off-peak renewable baseload power, and Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) vertical farming. We formulate a detailed techno-economic model showing that direct thermal integration via liquid-to-air cooling loops reduces vertical farm thermal operating expenses (OPEX) by 68.4% and total unit production cost by 31.2%. To replace unsustainable direct government subsidies, wedesign a resilient capital structure leveraging Investment Tax Credits (ITC), policy-backed concessionary loans, and Special PurposeVehicle (SPV) Infrastructure Funds. Furthermore, we construct an international trade risk defense framework compliant with Article2 and Annex 2 (Green Box) of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), coupled with a Territoriality-Based Emergency ControlIndex (ΗNECI) for sovereign food security encapsulation during global geopolitical crises.