The 2026 data center market, priced from the land up

North American colocation capacity under construction reached 7,481.1 MW in the first half of 2026, up 24.8% year over year, at a record-low 1.4% vacancy with 80.4% of that pipeline already preleased (CBRE). Counting hyperscale self-build, JLL puts North American construction at 66 GW, 95% pre-committed. For landowners the operative number is neither: it is Cushman & Wakefield's finding that Americas planned capacity reached 191.3 GW at end-2025 against 46.1 GW a year earlier — a 4.1x jump in demand for sites that do not yet exist.

Key takeaways

CBRE, H1 2026, colocation in primary North American markets: 7,481.1 MW under construction, up 24.8%; vacancy 1.4%; net absorption 1,456.2 MW, up 11.7%; preleasing 80.4%; total supply growth 10,903 MW, up 33.7%.
JLL, H1 2026, including self-build across all markets: absorption 25 GW, doubled year on year; vacancy 1% for a third year and expected near zero through 2028; 66 GW under construction, 95% pre-committed, 77% in frontier markets; rents up roughly 70% cumulatively since 2020.
Cushman & Wakefield: global under construction 31.7 GW in 2025 against 12.5 GW in 2024; Americas 25.3 GW; Americas planned 191.3 GW; pre-committed including self-build 89%. Dallas displaced Northern Virginia as the world's number one primary market, followed by Atlanta, Virginia, Columbus and Johor.
Atlanta overtook Northern Virginia on capacity under construction in H1 2026 at 2,882 MW, up 52.3%, with 10-plus MW pricing up 14.5%.
Northern Virginia has 10.8 MW of available supply left against 4,496.5 MW of inventory and 0.2% vacancy.

The Landside Signal

A quarterly brief on powered land, port capacity and air-cargo gateways, plus the Powered Land and Gateway Pricing Benchmarks data file.

Dollar per megawatt and dollar per acre benchmarks by market, with the substation-distance and voltage premiums applied
Every committed United States port capacity opening from 2026 through 2035, with cost, TEU and date
Airport-adjacent rent premiums by gateway, and the constraint map that drives them
The named project pipeline: site, megawatts, developer, power source, status
Sources and periods for every cell. Nothing unattributed.

Definition warning

Read this before quoting any megawatt figure

The three major brokerages publish numbers for capacity under construction that differ by roughly nine times, because they measure different universes.

Capacity under construction, by source and universe measured
Source	Period	Under construction	What it counts
CBRE	H1 2026	7,481.1 MW	Colocation and wholesale only, primary North American markets
JLL	H1 2026	66 GW	North America, including hyperscale self-build, all markets
Cushman & Wakefield	2025	31.7 GW global, 25.3 GW Americas	Global, including self-build, 107 markets

Same directional story, incompatible arithmetic. Anyone presenting these interchangeably is not reading the reports. JLL's 25 GW absorption figure is likewise not comparable to CBRE's 1,456.2 MW.

Market by market, first half of 2026

North American data center markets, H1 2026
Market	Vacancy	Under construction	Notable
Northern Virginia	0.2%	2,420.2 MW, up 16.5%	4,496.5 MW inventory, the largest globally; 10.8 MW available; 10-plus MW asking $160 to $185 per kW per month
Atlanta	—	2,882 MW, up 52.3%	Passed Northern Virginia on construction; turnkey preleases about one year out, build-to-suit about 2.5 years out; 918 MW absorbed in six months per JLL
Dallas-Fort Worth	—	765 MW, about 95% preleased	3.7 GW planned but not started; number one global primary market per Cushman & Wakefield; most attractive market for 78% of investors per CBRE
Phoenix	—	1.7 GW per JLL	260-plus MW colocation absorption in H1; 442 MW absorbed per JLL
Chicago	2.2%	—	Highest primary-market vacancy and still tight; no contiguous availability above 5 MW expected in 2026; 250 to 500 kW asking $200 to $230 per kW per month, the highest in North America; ComEd power delivery extends to 2032 or later
Columbus	0.1%	—	Number four global primary market per Cushman & Wakefield
Hillsboro and Portland	0.21%	170.3 MW, more than 90% preleased	—
New York and New Jersey	—	—	Pricing up 19% for 10-plus MW requirements, the largest increase of any primary market
West Texas	—	2.9 GW per Cushman & Wakefield	The single largest beneficiary of frontier-market migration per JLL
Austin and San Antonio	—	1.7 GW completed	796 MW absorbed per JLL

Vacancy, capacity under construction and market notes for ten North American data center markets in the first half of 2026.

Reno, Salt Lake City and Santa Clara are deliberately absent. No 2026 primary-source vacancy or rent figures are publicly available for them and we will not fill a gap with an aggregator number. See Methodology.

International rent benchmarks

CBRE Q1 2026, 250 to 500 kW deployments, dollars per kW per month: Singapore $330 to $475, the highest in the world; Tokyo $280; Frankfurt $235 to $265, the highest in Europe; Queretaro $250 to $270; Sydney $188; London $165 to $220; Sao Paulo $130 to $190.

Europe is dispersing away from its primary markets

European capacity is set to reach 13 GW by the end of 2026, up 20% year on year, with hyperscaler self-build up 22% to 4.3 GW — a seventeenth consecutive year of double-digit growth. The structural story is dispersal: FLAP-D accounted for only 252 MW, or 37%, of second-quarter 2026 deliveries, while non-FLAP-D markets took 55% of European take-up. Neocloud capacity in Europe quadrupled in the first half of 2026 to 420 MW from 89 MW, concentrated in the Nordics. FLAP-D vacancy is negative on the quarter; rest-of-Europe vacancy is forecast at 19% by year end — a genuine bifurcation risk.

The supply constraint is power, and it has a number

Cushman & Wakefield puts the global average wait for large-load power delivery at 4.4 to 4.5 years, with the Americas and EMEA at roughly five years and Asia-Pacific at two years and eight months. JLL puts grid connection in primary markets at more than four years. Specific ceilings: ComEd in Chicago at 2032 or later; West London substation upgrades into the early 2030s; Frankfurt into the 2030s; Hong Kong at five-year allocation lead times. Construction itself runs 24 to 48 months or more for large campuses.

“Record data center construction fails to ease capacity crunch.”

— Data Center Frontier, summarizing CBRE’s North America Data Center Trends, first half of 2026

What this means for a landowner

Preleasing at 80.4% under CBRE’s definition, 89% under Cushman & Wakefield’s and 95% under JLL’s means the same thing under every definition: capacity is sold before it is built, so the binding constraint has moved upstream to land with deliverable power. That is why Americas planned capacity quadrupled to 191.3 GW while under-construction capacity only doubled. The pipeline is full of sites that are still being assembled, and assembly is a land transaction.

Get a Landside Read

No fee. One parcel. One page. Usually back within five business days.