The number of hyperscale data centers has crossed the 1000 mark across the world according to a new report published by Synergy Research Group, that provides quarterly market tracking and segmentation data on IT and Cloud related markets.
According to the report that number stood at 992 at the end of 2023 and crossed 1,000 in early 2024. It also says that it has taken just about four years for the total capacity of hyperscale data centers to double. Looking ahead Synergy forecasts that total hyperscale data center capacity will double again in the next four years.
“While each year will see some 120-130 additional hyperscale data centers coming online, capacity growth will be driven increasingly by the even larger scale of those newly opened data centers, with generative AI technology being a prime reason for that increased scale,” said the company in a press release.
According to John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group, “Generally speaking, self-owned data centers are much bigger than leased data centers and data centers in the home country of a hyperscale company are much bigger than its international facilities, though there are plenty of exceptions to these trends.” He further said, “We’re also seeing something of a bifurcation in data center scale. While the core data centers are getting ever bigger, there is also an increasing number or relatively smaller data centers being deployed in order to push infrastructure nearer to customers. Putting it all together though, all major growth trend lines are heading sharply up and to the right.”
Synergy’s data shows that the United States still accounts for 51 percent of worldwide capacity (measured by MW of critical IT load), with Europe and China each accounting for about a third of the balance. The rest of the Asia Pacific (APAC) region (i.e excluding China) accounts for 10 percent.
The usual suspects Amazon, Microsoft and Google have the broadest data center footprint, mainly because of their Cloud services. They are followed by Meta/Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, Apple, ByteDance etc.
Explaining their methodology, Synergy said that their forecast growth numbers are based in large part on their tracking of hyperscale operators’ pipeline of future data centers. Synergy’s known pipeline of future hyperscale data centers currently stands at 440 facilities, which are at various stages of being planned, developed or fitted out.