Twenty state or metropolitan markets account for 62 percent of the world’s hyperscale data center capacity, Synergy Research Group reveals.
Northern Virginia and the Greater Beijing Area alone contributed 22 percent of the total. Following these leaders are Dublin, Oregon, Iowa, and Shanghai. The top 20 markets include 13 in the United States, four in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, and three in Europe.
Next twenty largest markets contribute another 18 percent to the global capacity, with Europe and APAC playing a more significant role in this group. The dominance of U.S. markets is attributed to the fact that nearly 60 percent of the world’s hyperscale operators are headquartered in the U.S., including the four largest — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta. Additionally, the U.S. accounts for nearly half of all global cloud market revenues.
Looking forward, the U.S. and China are expected to maintain their leadership in hyperscale data center capacity, although emerging markets such as Malaysia, India, and Spain are likely to gain more prominence.
Hyperscale Leaders and Global Footprint
The research, which analyzed the data center footprint of 19 major global cloud and internet service companies, underscores the dominance of leading cloud providers — Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. These companies, with extensive data center networks in the U.S. and globally, account for 60 percent of all hyperscale data center capacity. Following them in the rankings are Meta (Facebook), Alibaba, Tencent, Apple, and ByteDance, along with several other smaller operators.
Synergy’s forecast growth numbers rely heavily on tracking the development pipeline of hyperscale operators. Currently, there are 510 hyperscale data centers in various stages of planning, development, or outfitting.
Factors Influencing Data Center Locations
John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group, explained that the choice of location for hyperscale infrastructure depends on several factors, including proximity to customers, real estate availability and cost, power costs, networking infrastructure, ease of doing business, local financial incentives, political stability, and natural hazard risks. These factors often favor less densely populated U.S. states like Oregon, Iowa, and Nebraska over major economic hubs like London and New York.
