Series
Investing at the Intersection

Investing at the Intersection

Data Centers: A Global Investment Opportunity

August 8, 2025 5 Minute Read Time

Data center interior

Data centers are essential infrastructure, powering global digitization and technological progress. This unique sector blends both infrastructure and real estate investment characteristics. With the market rapidly changing, understanding data center fundamentals is crucial for investors.

To provide clarity and keep you informed, CBRE Investment Management has developed key insights on this evolving sector. We invite you to review our collection of slides below and read our latest publication: Decoding Data Centers: Opportunities, risks and investment strategies.

Slide 1 - Data center outlook: Appealing fundamentals
Source: Based on CBRE Investment Management's subjective assessment and subject to change.
Slide 2 - Record investment in data centers by infrastructure investors in 2024, $ billions
Source: Infralogic as of June 17, 2025. Closed deals.
Slide 3 - Big tech AI investments are driving the power demand for data centers, $ billions
Source: CapitalIQ, US datacenters and nuclear energy outlook – an AI-fueled resurgence story, January 27, 2025. Data sourced by S&P Global 451 Research’s Datacenter services & infrastructure monitor and forecast.
Slide 4 - Global data creation forecasted to grow exponentially, zettabytes (ZB)
Source: IDC, Statista Digital Economy Compass, May 2024.
Slide 5 - Global power demand from data centers more than doubles by 2030
Source: International Energy Agency, Energy and AI, May 2025. Three sensitivity cases (Lift-Off, High Efficiency and Headwinds) capture uncertainties in efficiency improvements in hardware and software, AI uptake and energy sector bottlenecks.
Slide 6 - Grid interconnection queue constrains the supply of new data centers, U.S., gigawatts (GW)
Source: S&P Global Commodity Insights, 2025 US interconnection queues analysis, 2025.
Other category includes biofuels, coal, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, unspecified other fuels and non-battery storage. BESS stands for battery energy storage systems.
Slide 7 - The data center opporunity is global: U.S. data center asking rent, megawatts (MW), % annual change
Source: CBRE, per H1 2024 Data Center report. Forecast per CBRE IM H1 2025 Investment Outlook. For illustrative purposes only. Based on CBRE Investment Management's subjective views and subject to change. There can be no assurance any targets or business initiatives will occur as expected. Forecasts are inherently uncertain and subject to change.
Slide 8 - The data center opportunity is global: APAC markets in the top 10 by operational IT load, MW
Source: Cushman & Wakefield: 2025 Global Data Center Market Comparison.
Slide 9 - The data center opporunity is global: European market gains momentum, MW
Source: CBRE Europe Data Centres, Q1 2025. For illustrative purposes only. Based on CBRE Investment Management's subjective views and subject to change.
Slide 10 - Sustainability: Current and potential energy savings from technology improvements
Source: International Energy Agency (IEA), Energy and AI. 2025. Technologies with an estimated maximum energy saving potential.
Greater number of adoption dots indicates higher scale of energy savings potential.
These slides are an excerpt from our comprehensive outlook on data centers. For the full outlook, please contact your Client Solutions Officer.

Authors

Item 0 Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Item 4