The data centre market is experiencing unprecedented growth and changing dramatically, GlobalData analysis suggests.
In 2025, talk of the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble grew stronger, with frontier projects such as Stargate dominating the headlines. Meanwhile, server densities continued to grow to satisfy the voracious demand for compute placed by AI workloads. As a result, electrical grids are under unprecedented pressure, creating environmental and economic concerns.
The industry is building ahead of projected demand to secure capacity, and financial models are evolving, with private capital playing a growing role in the industry. These trends will accelerate in 2026.
The pipeline of large-scale data centre projects will continue to grow in 2026. GlobalData estimates there is currently a global pipeline of large-scale data centre projects with a total value of $2.31 billion. Data centres have become the backbone of economic competitiveness and a focus of geopolitical interest, driven by the AI revolution that started in late-2022.
The semiconductor space will continue to evolve, with new entrants in the market trying to capitalise on the growing inference opportunity, as the technological landscape evolves, and more enterprises deploy generative AI (GenAI) in production environments, says GlobaData. Greater adoption will also drive edge computing forward, as real-time workloads accelerate the need for localised data centre infrastructure to support latency-sensitive applications.
With the changes that will take place, innovation will continue apace, the GlobalData analysis predicts. Liquid cooling technologies will evolve to help dissipate heat in increasingly dense environments. Modular, pre-engineered AI systems that can be added to existing data centres with minimal disruption will increasingly be marketed to help meet demand for compute. AI workloads will grow their presence and expand from AI labs to enterprise environments, a trend that will continue to shape the data centre market.
Some key takeaways
- GlobalData estimates there is currently a global pipeline of large-scale data centre projects with a total value of $2.31 trillion. Some 64% of those projects remain in the early stages of pre-planning and planning.
- 2026 will witness strong growth in inference-optimised chips. Although GPUs will continue to claim the largest share of the overall market, the growing focus on efficiency will also drive demand for ASIC-based accelerators.
- Liquid cooling will be increasingly common for high-density racks (50–100 kW) with a progressively bifurcated landscape, with AI workloads opting for liquid cooling and traditional IT legacy environments leveraging air cooling.
Source: 2026 Enterprise Predictions: Data Centres, an advisory report from Global Data, owner of Modern Power Systems. Contact the analyst: beatriz.valle@globaldata.com
