There is record global demand for new data centers, but availability of power is hampering market growth. That’s one of the key findings from a new CBRE report: Global Data Center Trends 2023.
“Large corporations are finding it increasingly difficult to find enough data center capacity,” the report says. “Low supply, construction delays, and power challenges are impacting all markets.” The report covers North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific.
In Northern Virginia, a U.S. nexus of data centers, “power availability issues are reflective of transmission and distribution issues, not power generation,” the report says. “Power supply concerns raise questions about future development, but the bottleneck should ease by 2025 or 2026.”
In Europe, “the data center industry’s largest customers are securing power capacity at such an increasing volume that it’s outpacing completed development,” the report says.
Other notable findings include:
- Certain secondary markets with robust power supplies stand to attract more data center operators.
- Northern Virginia remains the world’s largest data center market with 2,132 megawatts (MW) of total inventory.
- Northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, Dallas/Ft. Worth, and Chicago markets saw a record amount of construction over the past year.
- The shortage of data center capacity is causing price increases. Singapore has the highest rental rates at $300 to $450 per month for a 250- to 500-kilowatt (kW) requirement, while Chicago has the lowest at $115 to $125.
Rapid growth in artificial intelligence, streaming, gaming, and self-driving cars, is expected to drive continued strong data center demand. This will spur innovations in data center design and technology as operators aim to deliver the capacity that meets increased power density requirements of high-performance computing.
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