Data Centers worldwide

Global Data Centers

Executive Summary: The Global Infrastructure Supercycle

The worldwide data center market has entered an unprecedented investment supercycle, projected to exceed "$430 billion" in 2026 as artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud hyperscale demand fundamentally reshape the physical internet. We are moving from a world of abundant capacity to one of distinct power scarcity, where the primary currency is no longer just square footage, but gigawatts of energized, AI-ready power.

For global buyers, the market has bifurcated. On one side are the Mature Interconnection Hubs (Northern Virginia, Frankfurt, Singapore, Tokyo) - critical for low-latency routing but increasingly constrained by grid bottlenecks and vacancy rates under 2%. On the other are the emerging "Power Frontiers" (Nordics, Johor, Quebec, Midwest US) - rapidly growing regions offering the massive, renewable-powered campuses required to train next-generation AI models. Success in 2026 requires a "Core + Edge" strategy: securing expensive, highly connected space for latency-sensitive applications while migrating bulk compute to cost-efficient, power-rich secondary markets.

Find colocation, bare metal, and AI-ready infrastructure across 100+ countries, from the carrier-dense hotels of the major continents to the renewable energy frontiers of the Global South.

Global Data Center Market at a Glance

The industry is racing to double global capacity by 2030, but growth is uneven. North America remains the dominant heavyweight (hosting ~40-45% of capacity), yet Asia-Pacific (APAC) is growing the fastest (12% CAGR) as it builds the digital foundation for billions of mobile-first users. Europe is pivoting toward strict regulatory sovereignty and sustainability (EED/GDPR), while Latin America and Africa are leaping forward with new subsea cable systems that reduce reliance on legacy northern routing. Across all regions, the defining trend is the rise of AI Factories - facilities purpose-built with liquid cooling and high-density power grids to support rack densities of 50kW to 100kW+.

Major Global Data Center Regions

North America (The Gigawatt Core)

The world's largest and most mature market, characterized by massive cloud availability zones and the densest fiber interconnects.

• Primary Hubs: Northern Virginia, Dallas, Silicon Valley, Chicago, Toronto.
• Key Advantage: Deepest ecosystem of cloud on-ramps and carrier neutrality.
• Buyer Focus: The default choice for global headquarters and latency-sensitive US/Canada workloads, though power availability in Tier 1 metros is critically tight.

Europe (The Sovereign Fortress)

A highly regulated, sustainability-focused market defined by data privacy laws (GDPR) and green energy mandates.

• Primary Hubs: Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin (FLAP-D).
• Key Advantage: Unmatched legal certainty for data sovereignty and privacy.
• Buyer Focus: Essential for financial, healthcare, and government data that must legally reside within the EU/UK. The Nordics offer a green alternative for power-hungry AI training.

Asia-Pacific (The Dual-Track Engine)

The world's fastest-growing region, split between mature, constrained financial hubs and explosive emerging markets.

• Primary Hubs: Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Mumbai, Johor Bahru.
• Key Advantage: Massive scale and arbitrage opportunities (e.g., Singapore vs. Malaysia pricing).
• Buyer Focus: Critical for capturing the growth of the Asian digital consumer. Buyers often pair a "Core" node in Singapore/Tokyo with an "Edge" deployment in cheaper markets like Malaysia or India.

Latin America (The Renewable Release Valve)

A rapidly modernizing region powered by abundant hydro and solar energy, with improving direct connectivity to Europe and APAC.

• Primary Hubs: Sao Paulo, Santiago, Queretaro, Bogota.
• Key Advantage: High renewable energy mix and lower land costs.
• Buyer Focus: Ideal for regional content delivery and green-focused workloads, with new subsea cables (EllaLink, Humboldt) offering diverse routing options bypassing the US.

Africa (The Next Digital Frontier)

A mobile-first market pivoting from connectivity constraints to power-focused growth, fueled by massive new subsea cables.

• Primary Hubs: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos, Nairobi.
• Key Advantage: Fastest-growing digital population and improving subsea resilience.
• Buyer Focus: The strategic entry point for the next billion users. Success requires navigating grid instability with facilities that offer robust self-generation capabilities.

Global Strengths and Trends for Colocation Buyers

The AI Shift (Liquid Cooling and Density): The era of the standard 5kW rack is ending. New "AI-Ready" facilities are standardizing on 30kW - 100kW per rack, requiring buyers to verify if a site has liquid cooling loops (Direct-to-Chip or Rear Door Heat Exchange) rather than just traditional air cooling. Sustainability as a License to Operate: From Europe's EED reporting to Singapore's PUE caps, sustainability is now a regulatory hurdle. Buyers must audit PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness) metrics to avoid future compliance taxes or operational limits. The Rise of "Alt-Net" Connectivity: New subsea cable systems are creating a "Southern Link," allowing data to flow between South America, Africa, and APAC without touching the US or Europe. This offers powerful new redundancy and sovereignty options for global network architects.

How to Choose a Data Center Location Globally

• Step 1: Define the Latency Boundary. Where are your users? If they are global, you likely need a distributed "follow-the-sun" presence (e.g., one hub in NA, one in EU, one in APAC).
• Step 2: Assess Data Sovereignty. Does your data have a passport? If you handle German healthcare data or Indonesian citizen records, legal residency requirements will dictate your location selection regardless of cost.
• Step 3: Analyze Total Cost of Occupancy (TCO). Don't just look at the lease rate. Factor in power costs (which can range from "$0.04/kWh" in Norway to "$0.28/kWh" in Singapore), carbon taxes, and hardware import duties (common in Brazil and India).
• Step 4: Verify "Real" Power. In a constrained global market, a brochure is not proof. Demand to see the utility service date and confirmed grid capacity. A "planned" facility in 2026 is often years away from going live.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Where is the cheapest place to host data globally? A: generally, the Nordics (Norway/Sweden), parts of Canada (Quebec), and tier-2 US markets (Pacific Northwest) offer the lowest power costs globally (often "~$0.04 - $0.06/kWh") due to abundant hydro/renewable energy. Emerging markets like India and Malaysia also offer very competitive lease rates but may have higher hardware import costs.

Q: What is the difference between "AI-Ready" and standard colocation? A: "AI-Ready" facilities are structurally engineered for density. They feature reinforced slab floors (to hold heavy GPU racks), liquid cooling infrastructure (water loops at the rack level), and massive power feeds (50kW+ per cabinet). Standard colocation typically tops out at "~10-15kW" per rack and relies on air cooling.

Q: How do I handle data sovereignty for a global application? A: The standard approach is a regionalized architecture. You deploy local database shards in strict jurisdictions (e.g., Frankfurt for EU users, Jakarta for Indonesian users) to keep PII local, while routing anonymized or non-sensitive traffic to a central global hub for processing.

Q: Is "100% Renewable Power" actually available? A: Yes, in specific grids. Regions like Quebec, Norway, Iceland, and Costa Rica run on nearly 100% renewable baseload (hydro/geothermal). In other markets, "100% renewable" is often achieved via financial offsets (RECs/PPAs), which are good for accounting but don't mean the electrons flowing into your servers are green 24/7.