Rapid adoption of AI among enterprises and consumers is fueling the growth of data centers, the massive structures that provide the necessary computing power.

The AI data center boom impacts nearly everyone, from the tech and real estate sectors to policymakers and the environmentally conscious, who respectively view these data centers as a geopolitical asset and a drain on natural resources.

This report covers the most critical statistics and trends regarding data centers in 2026.

Editor’s Picks

Current State & Future Growth of Data Centers

The scale, capacity, and market value of data centers are growing exponentially.

Much of this is due to the increasing demand for AI among enterprises and consumers. But countless other business operations (like processing data from IoT devices) also depend on data centers.

Increasing consumer demand is just as powerful. Streaming services, ecommerce apps, and social media are creating massive workloads for data centers to process.

There are approximately 12,000 live data centers around the world (Data Center Map)

As of August 2026, there are 12,259 active data centers across 179 countries.

Not all of these data centers are used for AI, but many are.

The US has almost 9x more data centers than any other country (Data Center Map)

With 4,767 data centers as of August 2026, the US has the most of any country by far. The UK ranks second with 568, followed by Germany with 533, France with 393, and China with 376.

Demand for data centers is predicted to nearly triple by 2030 (McKinsey)

In 2025, non-AI workloads were predicted to total 38 GW, while AI workloads were expected to hit 44 GW.

By the end of 2026, estimates show 18 additional GW will be added. Growth between 2027 and 2029 is expected to reach about 20 GW each year.

However, mega growth is projected between 2029 and 2030, with 31 GW of data center capacity expected to be added.

This estimate shows a total of 219 GW in data center capacity by 2030, driven primarily by continued hyperscale cloud expansion and accelerating demand for AI infrastructure.

The data center sector is set to grow by 14% CAGR through to 2030 (JLL)

AI and cloud computing are expected to fuel a 14% CAGR in the data center industry through 2030. This forecast shows the sector adding around 97 GW of capacity between 2025 and 2030, nearly doubling its size within five years.

Nearly $7 trillion will be spent on building and upgrading data centers by 2030 (McKinsey)

This investment is expected to be spread across three main groups. About 15% will go to land and building requirements, about 25% will be spent on power generation and cooling, and about 60% will be invested in the tech and hardware required to run the data centers.

Demand for AI-specific data center usage is expected to lead to more than $5 trillion of this investment.

This estimate is based on the current momentum of the data center market. If momentum significantly accelerates, total data center investments could reach nearly $8 trillion over the next five years.

Alternatively, if demand drops, spending could level off at about $3.7 trillion.

US companies are expected to account for more than 40% of data center spending over the next five years (McKinsey)

US businesses invested more than $49B in data centers in the second quarter of 2026.

The vast majority of data center spending comes from US-based hyperscalers, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and others, that are already building in the US and have plans to invest even more in the coming years.

The capital spending of each hyperscaler is already trending toward $200 billion annually.

Although other countries are seeing an uptick in data center investment, most face restrictive regulations, higher energy costs, and fewer financial incentives than the US.

Total spending of US private sector companies on data center construction surpassed $41 billion in 2025 (Statista)

Last year’s levels showed that data center construction spending has grown more than 20x in the past decade and more than doubled in the past two years.

In June 2026 alone, US companies spent over $22 billion on data centers and broke ground on 23 new construction sites (ConstructConnect)

That’s the second-highest monthly total ever, falling slightly behind the $25.5 billion spent in January 2026.

The rapid growth in data center construction demand is pushing building costs sharply upward.

Median construction costs have increased about 38% from $415 per square foot in 2025 to current costs of $570 per square foot.

AI could be responsible for 50% to 70% of total data center computing by 2030 (Bain & Company, McKinsey)

Last year, AI training workloads used 5 GW of data center capacity, and AI inference (the process of generating outputs) used 2 GW.

By 2030, those numbers are expected to grow exponentially. AI training could require 23 GW, and AI inference could require 54 GW.

Several factors could lead to variations in these predictions, though. If businesses can unlock valuable AI solutions, demand could grow even more than current predictions.

On the other hand, increased efficiency in AI solutions could decrease the required capacity.

In the US, the estimated total data center capacity surpassed 62 GW in October 2026 (Cleanview)

An additional 386 GW of capacity is in the planning stages.

Despite these rapid increases, data center vacancy currently sits near 1%. Most companies contracting for space today are looking at 2028 availability.

Capacity increases would be even greater if not for two factors: land availability and power access.

Since power grids are already stretched thin in existing locations, the bulk of future capacity gains is expected to happen in new markets. About 80% of new data center projects are already happening in frontier markets like Louisiana that had virtually zero data centers until the beginning of 2025.

Also anticipate new capacity to come from large sites. Owners and developers are prioritizing sites between 200 MW and 750 MW.

Prime Locations for Data Centers

There are over 4,700 data centers in the US and more than 2,000 across Europe.

Every US state has at least one data center, with Vermont having the least (3) and Virginia having the most (674).

There are about 500 data centers in Northern Virginia (Data Center Map)

This area, often referred to as NoVA, covers 13 counties and about 4,400 square miles.

As of August 2026, Ashburn, Virginia, alone is home to 175 data centers.

Why Virginia?

One reason is the location’s interconnectivity. There’s a superior fiber network that enables low latency, and many critical submarine cables land on the coast of Virginia. It’s also close to several major cities, like New York and Washington, D.C.

Currently, Virginia’s data center computing capacity could increase by approximately 1,000% if all planned projects go ahead.

Aside from northern Virginia, the top data center markets are Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Chicago (CBRE)

Atlanta ended last year with a total capacity of 1,459.2 MW. That’s an increase of more than 45% over the previous year. Plus, there’s an additional 2,076 MW of data center capacity under construction this year in the metro area.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, data center inventory increased by nearly 44% between 2025 and 2026 to land at nearly 1,250 MW of capacity. More than 175 data centers are already operational in the metro, with another 49 in construction and planning phases.

Chicago rounds out the top four data center markets with 910 MW of capacity, a 38% increase over last year. The city is also expecting a massive data center building spree this year as 3,670 MW of capacity is predicted to come online soon.

Approved, upcoming data centers across Nevada will grow the area’s capacity by more than 950% (Stanford)

Upcoming projects in Nevada will add at least 3,800 MW to local data center capacity.

The Peru Shelf Technology Park is building 810 MW of capacity, Microsoft recently acquired 300 acres of land, and Vantage Data Centers has a $3 billion project in the works.

In the summer of 2026, Nevada data centers were already consuming about one-quarter of total electricity in Nevada. Growing capacity means that electricity needs could soon surpass 2.8x the power generation of the Hoover Dam.

However, in May, the City of Reno became the first city in Nevada to place a moratorium on data centers. It’s set to expire in August 2027.

About 15% of Europe’s data centers are in Germany (Tech Policy Press)

Germany has the highest concentration of data centers outside the US. Nearly one-quarter of these data centers—160 of them totaling more than 2 GW of capacity —are located in Frankfurt.

As of August 2026, Frankfurt has 311 MW of additional capacity under development and 687 MW in the planning stages.

The Frankfurt data center boom is so expansive that all existing energy capacity has already been claimed for years to come.

The main draw for data centers in Frankfurt is DE-CIX, the world’s largest internet exchange operator.

The largest data center in the world is in Hohhot, China (GBC Engineers)

China Telecom’s Inner Mongolia Information Park encompasses 10.7 million square feet. Despite its gigantic size, the data center’s capacity is just 150 MW. That’s because much of the campus is devoted to warehouses, offices, and even residential space.

In the United States, Switch’s Citadel Campus near Reno, Nevada, is one of the largest. The first phase of construction began in 2017, and the company broke ground on its third building on the campus in the summer of 2026. When complete, the site will span 7.2 million square feet and provide up to 650 MW of capacity.

The most powerful data center in the world is planned for Utah (KSL Utah)

Creekstone Energy is in the planning and permitting stages of building a 20-million-square-foot data center site called Delta Gigasite. Within the decade, the company says the data center will ramp up to 10 GW of capacity.

The Footprint of Data Centers

While a few data center campuses exceed 8 million square feet, the typical data center covers about 100,000 square feet. However, recent data shows that the average is trending upward as newer facilities come online.

Typically, hyperscale data centers house more than 5,000 servers (IBM)

Because of the sheer amount of IT equipment, these data centers are typically larger than 200,000 square feet, and several are well over 1 million square feet.

Large sites offer several advantages to companies with a wealth of capital, like Meta, Microsoft, and AWS. All hardware and cooling infrastructure at one site is highly standardized. In addition, the infrastructure needed for connection to the power grid is massive, but it only needs to be set up once.

There are more than 1,300 hyperscale data centers worldwide (Synergy Research Group)

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control 58% of these hyperscale data centers, and more are on the way.

Globally, hyperscalers have an additional 803 data centers in the works.

By 2031, estimates show that hyperscalers could hold 67% of all data center capacity.

43% of hyperscale data centers are located in the US. Iowa, Oregon, Ohio, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area have the highest concentration.

Amazon ranks as the leading hyperscaler in the world (Data Center Magazine)

Amazon operates 260 known data center locations across 22 countries. An additional 157 sites are under construction.

Like many other hyperscalers, precise numbers and locations of all of Amazon’s data centers are unknown. However, a recent Bloomberg report suggests that Amazon may operate more than 900 data center locations.

No matter the precise number of sites, Amazon’s capital expenditures on data centers are massive. In 2025, it topped $100 billion. This year, it’s expected to surpass $220 billion.

Microsoft built a 1.2 million square foot “AI factory” in Wisconsin (Microsoft)

Microsoft invested about $3 billion to build this data center that covers 315 acres. It officially opened in June 2026.

In November 2025, the company opened a very similar site, covering about 1 million square feet across 85 acres, outside of Atlanta.

In total, Microsoft operates 150 known data centers across 22 countries, with another 178 under construction.

The first hyperscale data center site built by Google now covers 1.3 million square feet (IBM)

In 2006, Google opened its first data center site in The Dalles, Oregon.

Since then, the company has invested more than $1.8 billion to expand this single site. It now covers more than 1.3 million square feet.

Google recently announced a $600 million plan to expand the site further. A fifth building, about 290,000 square feet, is expected to be added.

It takes less than 18 months for a hyperscale data center to come online (Tech Republic)

Construction of the first of OpenAI’s Stargate data center projects launched in June 2024.

The first two buildings, covering 980,000 square feet with 200 MW of capacity, went online in September 2025.

Construction on six additional buildings began in March 2025 and is estimated to be wrapped up by late 2026. Those buildings are projected to bring the site to a total of 4 million square feet and 1.2 GW of power.

The average size of a data center in the Northeast US is 143,000 square feet (Regional Plan Association)

New York leads the Northeast with 135 data centers. There are 19 in Lower Manhattan alone, and 72 are located in New York City.

One of these is the 60 Hudson Street data center, which is one of the most important hubs of data interconnectivity in the world. It hosts multiple data center operators across its 24 stories.

Another large data center is the SDC Manhattan. It covers 222,000 square feet and provides 18 MW of capacity.

Iowa data centers now occupy more than 15 million square feet across 6,600 acres (Business Record)

There are more than 115 data centers in Iowa. Operators have invested nearly $15 billion in the market since the mid-2000s.

There are several hyperscale data centers in the state. For example, Apple is currently expanding its site in Waukee, Iowa, to encompass 1.9 million square feet.

One of Meta’s largest data centers is located in Altoona, Iowa, and the hyperscaler has also purchased a 328-acre plot of land in Davenport, Iowa.

The Economic Impact of Data Centers

Data centers drive tremendous revenue for enterprises, but they’re also impacting the economies and opportunities in local communities.

It is estimated that Meta’s capital expenditures for 2025, most of which were spent on data centers, totaled more than $70 billion (New York Times)

Meta’s capital expenditures totaled $28 billion in 2023 and $39 billion in 2024.

In Q2 of 2026 alone, the tech giant recorded more than $30 billion in capital expenditures.

By the end of 2026, Meta officials say annual capital expenditures will likely land around $130–145 billion.

Prometheus, Meta’s first gigawatt data center, is currently under construction in New Albany, Ohio. The data center is predicted to come online later this year. An on-site natural gas power generation project totaling 200 MW is predicted to be operational by November 2026.

Hyperion, a 5 GW data center that’s set to be Meta’s largest, is set to come online by 2030. Meta officials say the site in Louisiana will be almost as large as Manhattan’s footprint. There will be three natural gas power plants on site, costing a total of $3 billion.

Meta’s work in Louisiana is creating about 1,000 permanent jobs.

In addition, since construction started, local sales tax revenue has jumped 2,000%.

Vantage is investing $25 billion in a data center campus in Shackelford County, Texas (Construction Digital)

The site will consist of 10 data centers covering 1,200 acres. In total, it will provide 1.4 GW of compute capacity once it’s fully finished.

Vantage says the site will create 5,000 jobs across construction and long-term operation.

For every data center job, six indirect jobs are created (PwC)

In Virginia, the data center market creates about 74,000 jobs annually, worth a total of $5.5 billion in labor income for the state.

However, data centers themselves actually create very few jobs compared to the amount of land they occupy. It takes about 1,500 people to build a data center; once it’s operational, the site employs fewer than 200 people.

In Ohio, data centers could support more than 132,000 jobs by 2030 (Ohio Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation)

In 2024, data centers in the state provided nearly $7 billion in labor income across about 95,000 jobs.

About 36,000 of these jobs were directly attributable to data center construction and operation. About 30,000 jobs were in supplier industries, and about 28,000 were supported by household spending of people in the direct jobs and supplier jobs.

A 330 MW data center provides about $29 million in annual property tax revenue (Imperial Valley Press)

That estimate comes from a data center project in Imperial County, California, a rural area outside of San Diego. In addition to property tax revenue, the data center is predicted to create $72.5 million in sales tax revenue from purchasing IT equipment.

That’s a sizable increase in revenue for a county with just over 180,000 residents.

38 states have specific laws that provide tax incentives for data centers (National Conference of State Legislatures)

All of these states waive sales tax on equipment; 14 don’t tax the electricity that’s used in data centers; 11 states also offer breaks on property tax.

In addition, a CNBC analysis from last year found that 21 states don’t publicly report the total value of their tax breaks. However, the remaining 16 states that do report totals showed that nearly $6 billion in sales tax exemptions have been given to data centers over the past five years.

For instance, a Microsoft data center built in Illinois resulted in more than $38 million in sales tax exemptions. The site created 20 permanent jobs.

In fiscal year 2025, Virginia reported giving data centers $1.6 billion in state and local tax exemptions (Commonwealth of Virginia)

That’s an increase of nearly 120% over fiscal year 2024.

Financial audits show that Virginia, as well as Texas and Illinois, has recorded a more than 1,000% increase in tax revenue loss in recent years.

However, in 2024, Virginia reported that every dollar the state did not collect in sales tax resulted in 48 cents in new state revenue.

In July 2026, New York became the first state to pause approvals on hyperscale data centers (New York State)

The state legislature and the governor approved the moratorium, announcing that the state would be pausing permits in order to spend time developing a framework to protect the energy grid, the environment, and citizens of New York. Before this, New York had about $10B worth of projects in its data center pipeline.

A similar piece of legislation was vetoed by Maine’s governor in April 2026, but more than a dozen states are still debating data center moratoriums.

The Environmental Impact of Data Centers

Data centers require an immense amount of power to run thousands of servers. They also require millions of gallons of water to cool all of those servers.

Environmental activists, as well as local community members, worry that data centers will drain already low water supplies, increase fossil fuel pollution, and drive up electricity costs. However, new cooling techniques and increased renewable energy options could negate these effects.

The average data center uses about 4 MW of continuous power (IEA)

Global data centers consumed approximately 485 TWh of electricity in 2025, equivalent to an average continuous power demand of about 55 GW, according to the International Energy Agency.

This equates to an estimated average of about 40 GWh of electricity per data center annually, or about 4.6 MW of continuous power per site—enough to power 4,000 US homes.

However, this global average masks a large variation in facility size and energy use.

Smaller data centers typically operate in the 1–5 MW range, while hyperscale facilities frequently require tens of megawatts, with many new developments targeting 100+ MW.

The amount of electricity used by data centers is predicted to grow 16% each year through 2028 (Boston Consulting Group)

By 2028, data centers could demand up to 130 GW of power.

The increase in power needs from data centers is expected to drive 60% of the overall electrical load increase in the US through 2030. That’s more than the load increase from any other sector, including electric cars.

To put it in perspective, that’s the amount of power generated by over 13,000 offshore wind turbines, 245 million solar panels, or 65 Hoover Dams.

By 2030, data centers could consume up to 17% of total electricity in the United States (Electric Power Research Institute)

Right now, data centers use between 4% and 5% of total US electricity, but that number could more than triple over the next three years. That’s equivalent to adding enough electricity to power the entire country of France.

Due to rapidly advancing data center development, this estimate from the Electric Power Research Institute is 60% higher than its estimate from 2024.

The density of power use in data centers is expected to reach 176 kW per square foot in 2027 (Goldman Sachs)

This increased power density is due to the computing power needed to process AI workloads. For example, an AI server rack in 2027 is expected to require 50x more power than the server racks powering the internet today.

The chips that power AI workloads are also packed incredibly close together. The same amount of electricity used to power 1,000 American homes powers the AI chips that fit into a space that’s about the size of a filing cabinet.

The power needs of data centers could raise residential electricity bills by 25% in some parts of the US (Carnegie Mellon University)

Utility providers requested $29 billion in rate increases in the first half of 2025—more than double the requests of the same time period in the previous year.

In late 2025, Virginia’s State Corporation Commission approved a rate hike request from Dominion Energy that will increase residential electricity bills by about 7.5%.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission proposed a 5% rate hike in early 2026. It’s the provider’s first distribution-rate increase since 2016.

Alabama Power bought a $622-million natural gas plant in 2025, largely needed to meet the growing power demands of data centers. However, the utility has frozen customer rates through 2027 and is expected to increase electricity bills in 2028.

Reports show that if all of Alabama’s planned data centers are built to full capacity, they will use more electricity than all of the homes in the state combined.

Monthly electricity costs in areas surrounding data centers are up by as much as 267% over the past five years (Bloomberg)

Increased prices have already trickled down to homeowners. With the highest concentration of data centers, Virginia is predicted to see the highest increases in the coming years. Today’s average monthly electricity bill in the state is about $143, but could surge to $315 by 2039.

Some data centers consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day (Environmental and Energy Study Institute)

In order for the equipment to function properly, data centers must maintain a temperature between 64 and 80 degrees F. Approximately 75% to 90% of operators use water-based cooling methods to disperse heat.

In one cooling method, about 80% of the water evaporates. The remaining water cannot be reused and must be pumped out to a water treatment plant.

Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory predict that hyperscale data centers alone could use up to 33 billion gallons of water annually by 2028.

One Microsoft data center in Arizona uses 56 million gallons annually, equivalent to 670 households (APM Research Lab)

The water needs of data centers are particularly concerning to citizens in drought-prone areas.

An analysis from Bloomberg found that at least two-thirds of data centers planned or built since 2022 are in places where water resources are already stressed.

Texas, which is nearly 27 inches short on rain this year, is set to add more than 300 data centers in the near future. Current data centers use about 1% of total water in the state, but recent estimates show that could grow to as much as 9% by 2040.

The noise from a data center’s gas turbines can be heard from half a mile away (Politico)

Many data centers have built their own power generation systems instead of drawing electricity from the grid. Nearby residents say the noise this creates is very bothersome.

In addition to the turbines, residents also complain of low-pitched hums and high-pitched whines created by the data center cooling systems. These systems, and the noise disturbances, run continuously and are even louder on hot days when extra cooling is required.

As of June 2026, there were at least three lawsuits against data center operators alleging the noise is leading to lower property values, emotional distress, and an overall public nuisance.

Nearly 65% of senior enterprise leaders are concerned that the environmental requirements of AI will negatively impact their sustainability goals (Ernst & Young)

Data center usage is reported under Scope 3 emissions. Enterprises that are adopting widespread use of AI could see a large increase in emissions and negative progress in terms of other sustainability goals.

Potential factors include ecosystem disruption from data center construction, raising carbon emissions from fossil fuel power generation, and increasing water consumption.

What’s next for data centers?

Data center revenue is predicted to grow to nearly $810 billion by 2031, but that estimate could vary drastically depending on changes in data center locations, power generation opportunities, and financial investments.

Location

As companies look to build additional sites to drive revenue gains, location will be one of the most important factors.

Prime states like Virginia already have saturated markets, creating several challenges in terms of power generation and growing resistance among citizens. On the other hand, rural areas across the US provide reliable grid connections and large areas of cheap land. These areas are often eager to welcome the tax revenue provided by large data center projects.

Look for the next generation of data centers to be built in places like rural Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, and Arizona.

Power

The next generation of data centers will also need alternative solutions for power generation.

Right now, it takes about 8 years to build enough infrastructure to power new data centers without adding strain to the grid. That’s why more than 70% of data center and power generation leaders say that powering data centers is either very or extremely challenging. Several data center projects have already been scaled back or delayed due to insufficient energy supply.

“Behind-the-meter” (BTM) power, an on-site power plant that operates specifically for the data center, is the most popular solution right now. Up to 25 GW of BTM is expected to be deployed over the next five years. Most BTM projects today are natural gas, but fuel cells and small modular reactors could gain traction in the coming years.

Economics

Both enterprise interest and private investment in data centers reached record highs last year. Adding to that demand, 1 in 5 Americans now uses AI regularly.

This demand is leading to unprecedented spending. Hyperscalers are predicted to spend $5.3 trillion on AI and data centers by 2030.

Power grid updates and associated utility investments are predicted to cost $720 billion through 2030.

However, citizens and local governments are a critical part of the economic picture. Data center construction will likely continue to fuel thousands of local construction jobs, and forthcoming regulations could help bear the brunt of increased electricity rates among consumers.

Operators and local governments will have to overcome steep public opposition, though. A Gallup poll from May 2026 found that 70% of Americans oppose data centers in their area (and  nearly half strongly oppose them). In the first three months of 2026, local or political opposition was credited with blocking 75 data center projects worth about $130 billion.