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According to Sean Farney, VP of data center strategy at JLL, the CAGR for the data center market is around 20%, while demand specifically for AI-capable data center space is significantly higher
AI-driven demand is reshaping global data center markets, with availability tightening rapidly as operators race to deploy capacity capable of supporting high-density compute.
In an interview with RCR Wireless News, Sean Farney, vice president of data center strategy at JLL, said overall data center demand continues to grow at a rapid pace, with AI workloads accelerating the trend even further.
“It is a wonderful time in the industry,” Farney said. “We all picked the right place to work because demand is through the roof.”
According to Farney, the compounded annual growth rate for the data center market is around 20%, while demand specifically for AI-capable data center space is significantly higher. “The compounded annual growth rate for the data center space is around 20%, which is impressive,” he said. “The demand for AI data center space, which is the space that can support the GPU compute required to make AI work, is about 39%, so almost double.”
That imbalance is already showing up in market availability, particularly in the Americas, he said.
“What this is resulting in, according to a recent JLL research, is an all-time low in availability of inventory in the Americas,” Farney said. “It’s less than 3% and trending downward.”
Despite a sizable development pipeline, Farney noted that most new capacity is already spoken for. “Although we see a robust pipeline of data center builds, about 75% of that’s already pre-leased,” he said.
Farney added that these conditions are contributing to rising rents and making it more difficult for buyers to secure finished capacity or even suitable sites for new development.
“It’s a little bit of a seller’s market,” he said, adding that some buyers are “having difficulty either finding finished inventory, or even on the front end where JLL helps out a lot of the hyperscalers finding what we call digital dirt — which is land with the power to support AI infrastructure,” Farney added.
