Which Regions Have the Biggest Data Centers?
The AI boom is fuelling the need for increased computing demand from the world’s data center network. According to a new report by the International Energy Agency, this demand will more than double by 2030.
The highest concentration of data center capacity can be found in Northern Virginia, accounting for nearly 7 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity in 2024. According to an interview with the vice chairman of real estate service provider CBRE, Rob Faktorow, with radio broadcaster WTOP in 2022, the main reasons are tax incentives, superior connectivity and infrastructure well suited to the resource needs of big server farms. Northern Virginia’s infrastructure is set to expand even further in the coming years, with around 5 percent of the world’s capacity currently under construction based there. Other key data center sites in the U.S. include Chicago, Dallas and Omaha in Nebraska. Combined, these four locations summed to around 12.4 GW of installed capacity in 2024 and just over 10 percent of the global capacity currently under construction.
After North America, Asia is the world’s second biggest world region for data center power capacity. Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta all appear in the top 10 biggest data center markets for installed capacity in 2024, together accounting for 8.5 GW, with an additional combined 1.44 percent of global capacity under construction. In Europe, London had 1.45 GW of installed capacity and Dublin 1.66 GW of installed capacity in 2024. Both have plans for further capacity underway.
Between 2024 and 2030, demand is expected to ramp up globally by 530 TWh. This is greater than the increase in demand required for space and water heating (454 TWh) and heavy industry (403 TWh), but lower than the increase required for sectors such as space cooling (651 TWh) and electric transport (838 TWh).