Gartner sees 57% of servers in 2,880 large data centers by 2029

Gartner’s data center forecast now puts 2,880 large data centers worldwide in 2029. By then it expects them to hold 57% of every server installed anywhere, compared to 44% in 2024. Two years earlier the same forecast put 1,955 large sites in 2027. The new edition puts 2,490 there, a 27% increase for the same year. Every other class of site, whether a single server in a closet or a 500-rack enterprise data center, loses servers through 2029.

The total site count, by comparison, barely moves. Gartner counts 3.46 million data center sites in 2024 and 3.74 million in 2029, a 1.6% compound annual growth rate. Of the 288,000 sites added, 261,000 are single-server sites. The growth that matters is in the large sites, which grow five times faster than the total, from 1,951 to 2,880 at an 8.1% CAGR. The servers move with them.

This post compares the two editions of Gartner’s data center sites forecast, published October 2023 and October 2025. It then places them beside the public counts from Synergy Research Group, JLL, the IEA and Cushman & Wakefield. Each source counts a different unit, so the comparison takes some care. Gartner counts sites and servers. Synergy counts hyperscale facilities and capacity share. JLL and Cushman & Wakefield count gigawatts, while the IEA counts terawatt-hours. All five still point the same way.

Gartner raised its large data center count 27% in two years

Gartner’s 2023 edition of the forecast covered 2021 through 2027 and projected 1,955 large data centers when that window closed. The 2025 edition covers 2023 through 2029 and projects 2,490 large sites in 2027. The two editions overlap for five years, and the gap widens every year. For 2023 the difference is 57 sites. By 2025 it is 238, and for 2027 it is 535.

Gartner defines a large data center as a site with more than 500 racks and more than 15,000 square feet. Both editions use the same definition, so the revision reflects changed expectations. Gartner attributes the growth to AI workloads, from training to inference, through 2027, with the forecast stabilizing in later years.

More large sites, fewer servers in each one

Servers moved far less than sites did between the two editions. The 2023 edition projected 40.6 million servers in large data centers in 2027, and its 2025 successor projects 41.9 million, an increase of only 3.3%. Gartner added 535 large sites to its 2027 count but only 1.3 million servers to fill them.

Divide one by the other and the average large site in 2027 shrinks rather than grows. It falls from 20,758 servers in the 2023 edition to 16,833 in the 2025 edition, a 19% drop. The 2025 edition holds that average flat through the forecast, at 17,155 servers per large site in 2024 and 17,140 in 2029. Density per rack falls too, from 12.2 servers in 2024 to 10.9 in 2029. Rack counts in large sites rise 64% over the period, from 2.75 million to 4.52 million, while server counts rise 47%. An AI server takes more rack space and more power than the box it replaces. So a count of servers understates what is being built.

The total server base was revised down

Worldwide, the 2023 edition projected 82.6 million installed servers in 2027, while the 2025 edition projects 80.0 million, a reduction of 2.6 million. All of that reduction, and more, comes out of the smaller site classes. Enterprise data center servers for 2027 fell from 23.2 million to 21.3 million between editions, and rack and computer room servers fell from 6.6 million to 5.8 million. Gartner’s 2029 figure of 86.2 million servers implies a 2.8% CAGR from 2024. That is far slower than the 8.1% CAGR for large sites because the rest of the base is shrinking.

Only the 2023 edition broke servers into x86 and non-x86 units. It projected non-x86 servers growing from 2.0 million in 2023 to 11.9 million in 2027, with 10.5 million of them in large data centers. The 2025 edition drops that split, as well as the storage and data center switch counts the older edition carried. The dataset now tracks sites, servers and server racks.

Every other site class shrinks

Between 2024 and 2029 the installed server base grows by 10.8 million units. Large data centers add 15.9 million, while the other four classes lose 5.1 million between them. Enterprise data centers are the 101 to 500 rack sites that most companies would call their own data center. They lose 2.16 million servers during the period, falling from 23.0 million to 20.8 million. Rack and computer room sites lose 1.46 million, midsize data centers 0.87 million and single-server sites another 0.64 million.

Enterprise data centers multiply while they empty. The number of enterprise sites rises from 6,937 to 7,570, a gain of 633 sites, while the servers inside them fall 9.4%. An average enterprise data center drops from 3,314 servers in 2024 to 2,752 in 2029, a 17% decline. The same pattern holds for midsize sites, which grow from 15,037 to 17,097 while their server base falls 12%.

Large data centers held 42% of installed servers in 2023 by the dataset’s own figures, 44% in 2024 and 48% in 2025. The share crosses 50% in 2026, then reaches 57% in 2029. Measured in racks rather than servers, large sites move from 43% of all server racks in 2024 to 56% in 2029.

China closes in on North America

North America has the most large data centers in every year of the forecast. It has 819 in 2024 and 1,001 in 2029, a 4.1% CAGR, but its lead narrows every year. China grows from 468 to 980 over the same period, a 15.9% CAGR, and adds 512 large sites against North America’s 182. In 2024 China had 57% as many large data centers as North America. In 2029 it has 98% as many.

Asia/Pacific accounts for two thirds of the revision

Most of the revision landed in one region. The 2023 edition grouped China with the rest of Asia/Pacific outside Japan and projected 563 large data centers for that region in 2027. Its 2025 successor splits the region three ways instead. For 2027 it projects 756 in China, 91 in Emerging Asia/Pacific and 69 in Mature Asia/Pacific, a combined 916. That is 353 more large sites than the prior edition. It accounts for 66% of the 535 sites Gartner added to its 2027 worldwide count. North America’s 2027 figure, by comparison, rose from 845 to 917 over the same two years.

Europe grows from 387 large sites to 479, a 4.3% CAGR. Japan grows from 100 to 132, while Emerging Asia/Pacific more than doubles from 54 to 110 at a 15.2% CAGR. The Middle East and North Africa grows from 25 to 43 at 12.0%. Gartner names the Middle East and Africa the fastest-growing region across all site classes, at a 6.5% CAGR. It credits government initiatives, foreign direct investment and partnerships with hyperscalers. In the dataset, Middle East and North Africa rack and computer room sites more than double, from 15,082 to 33,862. That is the fastest growth of any site class in any region.

On sites above the single-server class, North America still leads, with 165,950 in 2024 against China’s 73,143. China leads on total sites because it has 940,909 single-server sites against North America’s 728,078.

Five counts measure five different things

Gartner counts 2,107 large data centers in 2025, while Synergy Research Group counts 1,360 hyperscale data centers at the end of the same year. The two figures measure different things. Gartner counts any site above 500 racks, whoever runs it, which brings in colocation campuses and the largest enterprise and government sites. Synergy, in contrast, counts facilities operated by the hyperscale cloud and internet companies it tracks. So the 747 sites between the two figures are a rough estimate of how many large data centers are not hyperscale operated.

Synergy’s capacity shares also line up with Gartner’s server shares. Synergy put hyperscale operators at 37% of worldwide data center capacity in mid-2023, 41% in mid-2024 and 48% at the end of 2025, with 67% forecast for 2031. Gartner’s shares for 2023, 2024 and 2025 are 42%, 44% and 48%. The two firms measure different units, one in megawatts of critical load and one in installed servers. Even so, they land within five points of each other in every overlapping year.

Enterprise on-premise capacity, in Synergy’s count, has fallen from 56% of the total in 2018 to 32% at the end of 2025. It forecasts 19% by 2031, roughly two points a year. Gartner’s enterprise data center class loses 2.16 million servers over five years, according to the 2025 dataset. Both firms see the enterprise data center shrinking as a share while the buildings themselves remain.

Gigawatts and terawatt-hours tell the same story

JLL’s 2026 Global Data Center Outlook puts worldwide capacity at 103 GW and projects 200 GW by 2030, which works out to a 14% CAGR. Roughly 100 GW of new supply arrives during those five years across colocation, hyperscale and on-premise sites. JLL expects AI workloads to represent half of all data center capacity by 2030, up from about a quarter in 2025. The IEA’s Key Questions on Energy and AI puts data center electricity consumption at 485 TWh in 2025, up 17% in a year. It then projects 950 TWh in 2030, around 3% of global electricity demand. AI-focused data centers grew their electricity use 50% in 2025 and triple it by 2030 in the IEA’s projection.

Cushman & Wakefield’s 2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison reports 31.7 GW under construction worldwide in 2025, up from 12.5 GW in the prior edition. During the same period, planned capacity across the Americas rose from 46.1 GW in 2024 to 191.3 GW at the end of 2025. Synergy’s pipeline of future hyperscale data centers stood at 915 facilities in August 2026, up from almost 800 in April.

Set against those figures, Gartner’s 8.1% CAGR for large sites is the most conservative growth rate in the group. JLL’s capacity doubles in five years, and so does the IEA’s electricity use. Synergy’s hyperscale capacity doubles in three. Gartner’s large site count grows 48% in five years, and its large site server base grows 47%. The difference is the unit rather than the direction. A site count cannot capture a 100 MW campus replacing a 10 MW building on the same ledger line. A server count cannot capture an 8-GPU system replacing a 2-socket x86 box.

How to read the Gartner data center forecast

• Treat the site count as a floor. Gartner’s 2,880 large sites in 2029 says how many buildings cross the 500-rack line. It says nothing about the power or compute inside them, which is where JLL, the IEA and Synergy see the growth doubling.
• Watch servers per site, not sites. The 2025 edition cut the expected server count of a 2027 large site by 19% while raising the number of sites 27%. Fewer, denser, more power-hungry systems per site is also the pattern every other source describes.
• Expect the enterprise class to keep emptying. Gartner has enterprise data centers losing 2.16 million servers, while Synergy has on-premise capacity falling two points a year. New enterprise sites get built, and the workloads still leave.
• Read the China number with its definition. Gartner’s 980 Chinese large sites in 2029 includes every operator above 500 racks. Synergy’s hyperscale count still puts the United States at well over half of worldwide capacity. Both can be true at the same time.
• Match the unit before comparing growth rates. An 8.1% CAGR in sites, a 14% CAGR in gigawatts and a doubling of hyperscale capacity in three years describe the same build-out at three different resolutions.
• Expect the next edition to move again. The 2023 edition undercounted 2027 large sites by at least 535 within two years. So far, nothing in the public pipelines from Synergy or Cushman & Wakefield points to the 2025 edition proving high.

Related comparisons

This post is the third in a series that places published forecasts side by side. AI infrastructure spending forecasts compared (October 22, 2026) covers what the build-out costs. AI revenue gap forecasts compared across Gartner, Goldman, Bain and JPMorgan (October 29, 2026) covers what it has to earn back. This post covers where it gets built. Gartner’s $4.05T AI forecast and Forrester’s Predictions 2027 (November 2, 2026) covers when the spending slows.

Key takeaways

• Large data centers hold 57% of the world’s servers by 2029. Gartner’s dataset puts sites with more than 500 racks at 44% of installed servers in 2024 and 57% in 2029, when they hold 49.4 million of 86.2 million servers.
• The large site count reaches 2,880 in 2029. That is up from 1,951 in 2024, an 8.1% compound annual growth rate, while total sites grow 1.6% a year to 3.74 million.
• Gartner raised its 2027 large data center count by 535 sites in two years. The October 2023 edition had 1,955 large sites for 2027, while the October 2025 edition has 2,490, a 27% increase. The 2027 total server base fell from 82.6 million to 80.0 million at the same time.
• Every other class of site loses servers. Large data centers add 15.9 million servers between 2024 and 2029, while enterprise data centers lose 2.16 million, rack rooms 1.46 million, midsize sites 0.87 million and single-server sites 0.64 million.
• China nearly matches North America in large sites by 2029. Gartner’s dataset has China growing from 468 large data centers in 2024 to 980 in 2029, a 15.9% CAGR, while North America grows from 819 to 1,001 and keeps the lead by 21 sites.
• Hyperscale operators already hold 48% of worldwide capacity. Synergy Research Group counted 1,360 hyperscale-operated data centers at the end of 2025, with a pipeline of 915 more as of August 2026 and a 67% capacity share forecast for 2031.
• Data center electricity use doubles to 950 TWh in 2030. The IEA projects that figure from 485 TWh in 2025, about 3% of global electricity demand, with AI-focused sites tripling their consumption.

How I built this analysis

The Gartner figures come from the two forecast documents and their accompanying Excel datasets. I used the pivot tables in each dataset to total sites, installed servers and server racks by site class and region, and to calculate shares, differences between editions, compound annual growth rates and servers per site and per rack. The 2023 edition uses seven regions and the 2025 edition uses nine, so the Asia/Pacific comparison combines China, Emerging Asia/Pacific and Mature Asia/Pacific from the 2025 edition to match the older grouping.

Two figures in Gartner’s summary differ from the dataset. The summary says large data centers held 41% of servers in 2024, while the dataset gives 41.5% for 2023 and 44.4% for 2024. I use the dataset values throughout. The summary also gives the Middle East and Africa a 6.5% CAGR, while the dataset’s two sub-regions combined grow at 5.7%. I report Gartner’s stated figure and attribute it, since the two cannot be reconciled from the dataset. Synergy, JLL, IEA and Cushman & Wakefield figures come from the public releases linked below, while the charts are my own work.

More analysis from this blog

• Gartner’s $9.76T IT spending forecast: servers will outspend all IT services by 2030
• AI infrastructure spending forecasts compared: every major firm raised its 2030 number in 2026
• Gartner’s $247.5B security forecast makes post-quantum firewall refreshes the only upgrade through 2030

This post is my personal analysis of Gartner, Synergy Research Group, JLL, IEA and Cushman & Wakefield research and does not represent my employer.

Sources

Gartner

• Gartner, Forecast: Data Center Sites, 2023-2029, Worldwide (G00808671), 17 October 2025, including the accompanying dataset.
• Gartner, Forecast: Data Center Sites, Worldwide, 2021-2027, 2023 Update (G00799095), 31 October 2023, including the accompanying dataset.

Public research and market data

• Hyperscale Operators to Account for 67% of all Data Center Capacity by 2031, Synergy Research Group, 7 April 2026.
• US Rises Again as Synergy Updates Its Ranking of Hyperscale Data Center Locations, Synergy Research Group, 19 August 2026.
• Hyperscale Operators and Colocation Continue to Drive Huge Changes in Data Center Capacity Trends, Synergy Research Group, 7 August 2024.
• On-Premise Data Center Capacity Being Increasingly Dwarfed by Hyperscalers and Colocation Companies, Synergy Research Group, 12 July 2023.
• Global data center sector to nearly double to 200GW amid AI infrastructure boom, JLL, 6 January 2026.
• Key Questions on Energy and AI, executive summary, IEA, April 2026.
• 2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison press release, Cushman & Wakefield, 2026.