a US state currently has more data center capacity than Europe or China. Known as the passage of data centers (Datacenter Alley), Virginia it has a third of the hyperscale data center capacity in the United States, according to Synergy Research Group. In total, in addition, in the second quarter of the year, the United States had 53% of the capacity of hyperscale data centers, measured in terms of critical technology loads. The rest is divided similarly between China, Europe and the rest of the world.
Although the number of data centers in the United States is not very surprising, the fact that much of it is concentrated in a single state can be shocking. It’s not just that anymore: it’s in a few northern Virginia counties: Fairfax, Loundon and Prince William. In them, the data centers are mostly near the cities of Ashburn, Sterling, Manassas and Chantilly. Amazon, in particular, has much of its data center infrastructure in the area. Microsoft, Facebook, Google and ByteDance also have a prominent presence in the area.
All of this comes from an analysis conducted by Synergy of the data center presence of 19 of the world’s leading cloud and internet services companies, covering all major software, infrastructure and platform-as-a-service operators. Also those of search, social networks, gaming and electronic commerce.
The three main cloud providers (Amazon, Microsoft and Google) are the ones with the greatest weight in this type of installation. Each one has about 130 of the 800 that exist throughout the world, and of those, at least 25 in each of the main areas. In terms of capacity, the ones that have the most are Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Alibaba and Tencent.
Outside of the United States, the Chinese market is the one with the most hyperscale infrastructure. In Europe, the main locations for data center infrastructure are Ireland and the Netherlands. Many companies choose them because of the incentives offered by their governments.
Therefore, the presence of data centers in the world is in most cases concentrated in a few areas, which has both advantages and disadvantages. In Virginia, for example, new data center projects are starting to meet opposition, over land use and water quality concerns. In addition, last July a report alleged that the area did not have enough electricity generation capacity for all the buildings and facilities that are planned.
In Ireland, Dublin South County Council last June banned the construction of any data centers on its territory. His authorities are concerned that data centers are having a noticeable impact on Ireland’s electricity grid, and that the country is facing blackouts if growth in demand is not addressed. However, this situation may be temporary, as experts expect that data centers will have a greater distribution in the future.
John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergyhas pointed out that «hyperscale operators weigh many points when deciding where to locate their data center infrastructure. These include the availability of valid building land, energy supply availability costs and options, proximity to customers, risk of natural disasters, local incentives and approval processes, ease of doing business, and dynamics. internal business. All of this has led to some hyperscale hot spots. The Netherlands and Ireland have always played strong, beating countries with larger economies such as Germany and the UK. But globally, the region that stands out the most is the state of Virginia, in the USA.«.
