Data centers, one of the fastest growing real estate sectors pre-pandemic, remained strong in 2020, as businesses reconfigured their digital infrastructure to improve their remote work capabilities, and tech giants and cloud service providers raced to meet consumer and corporate demand, according to CBRE.
The firm’s latest North American Data Center Trends Report shows 329.6 megawatts (MW) of net absorption in 2020 across the seven primary U.S. data center markets. While down 11 percent from the peak in 2019, 2020 absorption was still higher than any other year on record. Meanwhile, vacancy fell to just 8.5 percent, despite an 11 percent growth in new supply.
“With data usage growing at an explosive ra
