According to new data from Synergy Research Group, the number of large data centers operated by hyperscale providers increased to 992 by the end of 2023, surpassing the one thousand mark at the beginning of 2024. Furthermore, in just four years, the total capacity of hyperscale data centers has doubled as the number of facilities grows rapidly and their average capacity continues to increase. Synergy data shows that the United States still accounts for 51% of global capacity, measured in MW of critical IT load, while Europe and China each represent roughly a third of the rest. Looking ahead, Synergy predicts that the total capacity of hyperscale data centers will double again over the next four years. Although around 120-130 additional hyperscale data centers are expected to come online each year, capacity growth will be increasingly driven by the even larger scale of those newly opened data centers, with generative AI technology being a major reason for that scale increase.
The research is based on an analysis of the data center footprint of 19 of the world’s leading cloud and internet service companies, including major players in SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, search, social networking, e-commerce, and gaming. The companies with the widest data center footprint are the leading cloud providers: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. In addition to a massive data center presence in their local US market, each also has multiple data centers in many other countries around the world. Together, these three now account for 60% of all hyperscale data center capacity. They are followed in the ranking by Meta/Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, Apple, ByteDance, and then other relatively smaller hyperscale operators. Synergy’s growth figures are largely based on tracking the pipeline of future hyperscale data centers from the operators. Synergy’s known pipeline of future hyperscale data centers currently stands at 440 facilities, which are in various stages of planning, development, or equipment.
“While both the number of hyperscale data centers and their average size continue to grow at an impressive pace, there is much complexity and nuance behind those trends,” said John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “Overall, self-owned data centers are much larger than leased data centers, and data centers in the home country of a hyperscale company are much larger than their international facilities, although there are many exceptions to these trends. We are also seeing some bifurcation in data center scale. While core data centers are becoming increasingly larger, there is also a growing number of relatively smaller data centers being deployed to bring infrastructure closer to customers. Putting it all together, however, all major growth trend lines are sharply pointing upwards and to the right.”
source: [Synergy Group](https://www.srgresearch.com/articles/hyperscale-data-centers-hit-the-thousand-mark-total-capacity-is-doubling-every-four-years)