{"id":53286,"date":"2026-05-20T11:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T10:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/2026\/05\/20\/cushman-wakefield-report-ranks-dallas-number-one-primary-data-centre-market-in-the-world\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T09:06:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T08:06:00","slug":"cushman-wakefield-report-ranks-dallas-number-one-primary-data-centre-market-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/2026\/05\/20\/cushman-wakefield-report-ranks-dallas-number-one-primary-data-centre-market-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Cushman & Wakefield report ranks Dallas number one primary data centre market in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cushman & Wakefield\u2019s <\/em>2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison report finds development pipelines surging worldwide as operators expand beyond traditional hubs. Dallas takes the lead as the number one primary data centre market in the world, with Texas considered an AI infrastructure hub of growing importance.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global data centre markets are entering a new phase of expansion defined not simply by growth, but by increasingly strategic and selective development, according to Cushman & Wakefield\u2019s 2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison report<\/em>. For the first time, Dallas ranked as the number one primary data centre market in the world, followed by Atlanta (2), Virginia (3), Columbus (4) and Johor (5). Austin-San Antonio and West Texas led the secondary and tertiary market rankings, underscoring Texas\u2019 growing importance as a large-scale AI infrastructure hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Driven by accelerating AI adoption, cloud computing demand and digital infrastructure investment, global capacity under construction approached 31.7 gigawatts (GW) in 2025, more than doubling from 12.5GW reported in the prior edition of the report. At the same time, developers, occupiers and investors are facing intensifying constraints tied to power availability, land use, permitting timelines and growing regulatory scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe global data centre industry has entered a period of managed growth,\u201d said John McWilliams, Head of Data Center Insights at Cushman & Wakefield. \u201cDemand fundamentals remain extraordinarily strong, but the industry is no longer operating in an environment of unconstrained expansion. Power delivery timelines, land availability, community sentiment and regulation are now playing a much larger role in determining where and how data centres get built.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americas continue to dominate global development activity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Americas remain the centre of global data centre development activity, accounting for approximately 80% of all capacity currently under construction worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virginia maintained its position as the world\u2019s largest data centre market, with 11.3GW of operational capacity, while Texas emerged as one of the industry\u2019s fastest growing and most scalable regions as large-scale data centre development activity expands into numerous parts of the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report highlights West Texas as a rapidly growing AI infrastructure hub, with 2.9GW currently under construction, exceeding the entire amount of capacity underway across the EMEA region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe scale of development occurring across parts of the US is unprecedented from a commercial real estate perspective,\u201d said McWilliams. \u201cDevelopers are increasingly prioritising markets that can provide scalable land, reliable power infrastructure and a regulatory environment supportive of long-term expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the Americas, preleasing activity remains exceptionally strong. Approximately 89% of capacity currently under construction is already pre-committed when hyperscale self-build activity is included, underscoring continued imbalance between supply and demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report also notes that planned capacity across the Americas increased more than fourfold year-over-year, rising from 46.1GW in 2024 to 191.3GW by the end of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power availability continues to be a defining commercial real estate variable<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the report, access to power has remained one of the defining variables shaping global data centre development strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Globally, average power delivery timelines for new large-load requests now stand at 4.4 years, with timelines extending to approximately five years across both the Americas and EMEA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, developers are increasingly pursuing powered land opportunities, integrating private generation into projects and expanding into secondary and tertiary markets where infrastructure constraints may be less severe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe industry\u2019s focus has shifted from simply securing land to securing deliverable power,\u201d said McWilliams. \u201cThat dynamic is fundamentally reshaping data centre real estate strategy worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cushman & Wakefield\u2019s 2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison report finds development pipelines surging worldwide as operators expand beyond traditional hubs. Dallas takes the lead as the number one primary data centre market in the world, with Texas considered an AI infrastructure hub of growing importance. Global data centre markets are entering a new phase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":53287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6936,11,9310,13,19,1645,4934,513,43,514],"tags":[6284,2888,296,2063,5410,4839,1820,1819,422],"class_list":["post-53286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-cloud","category-cloud-computing","category-data-centres","category-features","category-insights","category-middle-east","category-regional-news-newsletter","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-ai-infrastructure","tag-cushman-wakefield","tag-dallas","tag-data-centres-2","tag-development","tag-growth","tag-report","tag-research","tag-texas"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53482,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53286\/revisions\/53482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}