DATA CENTRE DEVELOPERS WILL HAVE GREATER LEEWAY TO PHASE THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAMPUSES AT THEIR OWN PACE .
DATA CENTRE PREDICTIONS
Jacob Albers , Head of Alternatives Insights , Cushman & Wakefield
constrictions from either unavailable power or searches for additional sites .
The Northern Virginia market – the largest data centre market in North America – is a good illustration of this point .
Despite growing headwinds for land and power availability , Northern Virginia continues to rank as the preeminent data centre market . Absorption for the first half of 2023 reached almost 450MW , on a similar scale to previous periods . Vacancy remains at an all-time low of under 1 % in the market , as pre-leasing of space has remained rapid among new projects .
Any available land of sufficient size , with power and fibre availability , is heavily contested for either colocation or selfbuild purposes . In 2022 , it became apparent that the power distribution infrastructure for a key utility in Ashburn would not be able to support continued data centre development and would require a pause on new projects through at least 2024 , if not 2025 – 2026 .
As infrastructure in Loudoun County is upgraded to enable the distribution of sufficient power , new projects have increasingly been announced at greater distances from traditional data clusters . While data centres had previously been concentrated in Loudoun County ( Ashburn and Leesburg specifically ), developments have spread in recent years to Manassas , Sterling , Herndon and Prince William County . Over the past year , developments have been announced increasingly farther afield as developers are in search of available power and larger land sites . Projects have been announced in Warrenton , Culpeper , Spotsylvania , Caroline County and as far South as Richmond . Despite these headwinds , the market surpassed 4.5GW in size between self-perform and colocation builds , with continued activity in surrounding counties expected in 2024 as any land availability is quickly utilised .
The high competition within the Northern Virginia market has pushed greater interest in other established markets as well as a class of rapidly rising secondary markets . The other North American primary markets ( Atlanta , Chicago , Dallas , Phoenix , Silicon Valley ) have all seen vacancies fall to record lows of 5 % or below . Secondary markets like Austin , Columbus , Denver , Salt Lake City and others have also seen a compression in vacancy , though opportunities for space remain .
While other factors such as digitisation of rural areas and continuing 5G rollouts
DATA CENTRE DEVELOPERS WILL HAVE GREATER LEEWAY TO PHASE THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAMPUSES AT THEIR OWN PACE .
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