The USA isn't just winning the data centre race. It’s running away with it.
There are approximately12,300 active data centres around the globe with nearly half of those are in the US…
Rather than be evenly distributed, Data centre dispersal is highly concentrated. They tend to be clustered where there is reliable and inexpensive power; a high population density and internet demand; major fibre network intersections; political and economic stability and suitable climate and land availability.
Regional Breakdown
- North America: ~48% of global data centres. Dominated by the US.
- Europe: ~28% of global facilities, with strong concentrations in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, and Ireland.
- Asia-Pacific: Fast-growing region led by China, Japan, Australia, India, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
- Latin America: Smaller but expanding rapidly, particularly in Brazil and Mexico.
The world's largest individual data-centre market known as ‘Data Centre Alley’ is in Ashburn Virginia where any major cloud providers, carriers, and internet exchanges are present. London is Europe's largest data-centre market, and this is driven by financial services, Cloud computing, and global connectivity due to the proximity of international submarine cables between North America and Europe.
Traditional hubs are increasingly being constrained by power and land availability. Hence new growth areas in the US, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Brazil, and the Nordic region are starting to pop up. These locations offer abundant power, land, and in some cases cooler climates that reduce cooling costs.
Relationship to Fibre Networks
Data centres are normally built close to major fibre routes or Internet Exchanges, or near Submarine cable landing stations. This is also where technologies such as Hollow Core Fibre (HCF) become interesting. Large cloud providers are beginning to investigate HCF for data-centre-to-data-centre connections, especially where lower latency can improve AI training performance or cloud synchronisation.
