DATA CENTRE STRATEGY
for the global data centre market through 2027, with an upside scenario reaching 20 %. The firm estimates that roughly US $ 170bn of data centre asset value will require new construction lending or permanent financing in 2025 alone.
While asset trades are anticipated to increase moderately, the real headline is the flood of capital into new facilities, upgrades, and strategic land acquisitions.
Significantly, the demands of AI mean the distinction between training and inference is fuelling new investment patterns: hyperscale“ training” data centres cluster near robust power sources, while edge and inferenceoriented sites move closer to major population centres for lower latency. This“ decoupling” is shaping both where and how capital is spent. By 2030, McKinsey expects data centres will need US $ 6.7tn in global investments to meet the surging demand.
But for companies across the compute power value chain, making investment decisions is challenging and hinges on forecasting global demand for data centre capacity.
So what are some of the fundamental factors data centre operators and the investors behind them must consider as they define their strategies for the rest of 2025 and beyond?
78 October 2025