Data Centers in North America

Why Choose Datacenters in North America (NA)

Executive Summary: Datacenters Market in North America

North America is the largest and most mature datacenter market in the world, with multi-gigawatt capacity concentrated across its primary hubs and vacancy at historic lows due to AI and hyperscale demand. The region combines dense interconnection in metros like Northern Virginia, Dallas, Silicon Valley, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal with deep cloud on-ramps and rich internet exchange ecosystems. Power availability, long-term scalability and sophisticated financing make it a natural home for high-density AI, HPC and enterprise workloads that need to grow quickly without compromising reliability. At least forty US states plus multiple Canadian provinces and Mexican states now offer some form of tax or power incentive, giving buyers meaningful flexibility to balance location, cost and risk. For organizations standardizing on a primary global region, North America is often the first choice because it pairs global connectivity with policy stability, talent depth and a proven operational track record at scale.

Find colocation, interconnection and AI-ready capacity across the United States, Canada and Mexico, from core cloud on-ramp hubs to fast-growing frontier markets.

North America Datacenter Market at a Glance

North America's primary datacenter markets now total several gigawatts of commissioned capacity, with under-construction pipelines measured in the thousands of megawatts. Two hubs alone, Northern Virginia and Dallas, account for roughly half of absorption in recent periods, underscoring how much global demand concentrates into a small number of highly connected metros. Secondary and frontier markets in places like Pennsylvania, West Texas, Tennessee and the Midwest are expanding quickly as developers chase power, land and grid headroom while core hubs tighten. The region offers direct, low-latency paths into Europe, Latin America and APAC via coastal gateways and subsea cable landing points, making it a central node for global network design, not just a domestic market.

Major Data Center Hubs in North America

United States

• Northern Virginia (Ashburn and surrounding counties) is the largest data center market on earth, with record levels of absorption and under-construction capacity and unrivaled carrier and cloud density.
• New York and New Jersey serve trading, banking and enterprise workloads that need direct access to financial exchanges and corporate headquarters with tight latency budgets.
• Chicago anchors the central United States, offering balanced latency to both coasts, strong network backbones and growing large-footprint deployments.
• Dallas has emerged as a core national hub between Northern Virginia and Silicon Valley, with strong long-haul connectivity, competitive economics and increasing AI interest.
• Silicon Valley and the broader Bay Area remain critical for proximity to cloud, AI and SaaS ecosystems, though power constraints mean many operators now pair it with Phoenix, Reno or other western markets.
• Phoenix, Atlanta, Seattle and Portland are all seeing steady growth as alternatives or complements to traditional coastal hubs, offering better power conditions, climate advantages or specific ecosystem strengths.

Canada

• Toronto is Canada's primary financial and interconnection hub, with access to the Toronto Internet Exchange and strong cross-border connectivity into US markets.
• Montreal combines attractive power pricing, a high share of renewables and cool climate, making it an increasingly popular destination for AI and high-density deployments.
• Vancouver functions as a gateway between Western Canada, the US Pacific Northwest and Asia-Pacific routes, serving content delivery, gaming and cloud workloads that span both sides of the border.

Mexico

• Mexico City is the main business and government hub, serving domestic enterprises and public sector workloads that require in-country presence and regional latency guarantees.
• Queretaro has developed into Mexico's leading data center cluster, attracting international investment thanks to its elevation, power availability and relative distance from seismic and flooding risks near the capital.

North America's Regional Strengths for Colocation Buyers

North America offers unmatched choice across deployment sizes, from individual cabinets to 10-MW-plus leases, with pricing tiers that reflect both local power markets and the premium attached to scale-ready sites. Connectivity is a core strength: buyers can access dozens of carriers, multiple internet exchanges and direct cloud on-ramps in most major hubs, enabling rich interconnection strategies and multi-cloud architectures. Reliability is supported by mature utility infrastructure, strict building standards and experienced operators, although grid stress and new tariffs in some states now make power diligence more important than ever. On the cost side, energy-rich or incentive-heavy states and provinces - such as Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Iowa, parts of Quebec and others - can materially improve long-term TCO for large footprints.

How to Choose a North American Datacenter Location

• Start with latency: map where your users, trading venues and core systems sit, then shortlist hubs like Northern Virginia, Dallas, Chicago, Toronto or Mexico City that can meet those round-trip targets.
• From there, evaluate regulatory and data residency requirements to determine whether workloads can span borders or need to stay within a specific country or jurisdiction.
• Model power and total cost over the life of the deployment, taking into account state and provincial incentives, utility tariffs, grid reliability and the cost of securing future capacity.
• Finally, align your choice with ecosystem needs: prioritize markets where your critical carriers, cloud regions, IXs and partners have strong presence so you can consolidate interconnection instead of stitching together fragmented solutions.

Countries and Cities for Datacenters in North America

Use these guides to drill into local conditions: network routes, power profiles, incentives and provider options - for each country and key metro.

• Data centers in the United States - coverage of primary and secondary markets, incentive hotspots and frontier power-rich regions.
• Data centers in Canada - focus on Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and emerging edge metros serving regional traffic and AI workloads.
• Data centers in Mexico - in-country options for compliance-sensitive and latency-sensitive workloads serving Mexican and broader LATAM users.

Within each country, you can explore city-level pages like Ashburn, New York, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Mexico City and Queretaro, each with its own local insights and provider list.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is North America suitable for AI and high-density workloads?
A: Yes. The region concentrates the bulk of global AI and hyperscale investment, with many markets now optimized for high-density power, liquid cooling pilots and large contiguous capacity blocks.

Q: Which North American hubs offer the best connectivity to Europe and APAC?
A: For Europe, East Coast hubs like Northern Virginia, New York-New Jersey and Montreal provide strong subsea cable access; for APAC, West Coast and gateway markets such as Seattle, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Vancouver are typically preferred.

Q: How do power and tax incentives differ between US states and Canadian provinces?
A: Incentive structures vary widely: states like Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Iowa and others offer long-term sales tax exemptions or energy benefits, while some jurisdictions are adding new regulatory layers or rebalancing incentives. Several provinces and Mexican states also pair competitive power pricing with targeted programs to attract digital infrastructure, making it important to evaluate specific locations rather than assuming uniform conditions.

Q: Where should I start if I'm migrating from on-prem to colocation in North America?
A: Most buyers begin by selecting a core hub that aligns with their primary user base and cloud region, then use a marketplace to compare providers on power density, connectivity, certifications, contract flexibility and price. From there, they often add a second region - for resilience, data residency or cost optimization - once the first deployment proves out.