19 Data Center Statistics You Shouldn't Miss in 2023

What is a data center? How do data centers work?

Data centers have become so crucial for everyday (business) operations so it’s imperative to know more about them. So—what are they and what is their purpose?

As always, we’re here to answer all your questions.

Organizations use data centers, which are large groups of networked computer servers, for storage, processing, and distribution of data.  Companies use it to centralize shared IT operations and equipment that stores, processes, and disseminates apps and data.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s explore some data center statistics that will underline their significance and value.

Data Center Facts That Will Amaze You (Editor’s Choice):

• Spending on data center systems worldwide reached $237 billion in 2021.
• The government owns and operates over 1,500 data centers.
• About 2% of the total energy in the US is used by data centers.
• 40% of all operating costs will come from energy consumption.
• There are around 7,500 of them across the world.
• The largest concentration of data centers is in the US with more than 300 locations.

Data Center Industry

1. In May 2021, the number of data centers in the US reached 2,600.

(Source: Usitc)

Even though most of the immense data firms, such as Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc. are located in Northern California, Dallas still has the highest number of data centers (149). The second on the list is Bay Area with 147, third comes Los Angeles with 139 ones. 

The US data centers are located over a wide variety of jurisdictions, which reflect the great usage of data throughout the economy.

In fact, the top 10 data center locations account for about 40% of all such entities in the US, with almost every state having at least one of them. The top five operators in the US (Lumen Technology, Verizon, Digital Realty, AT&T, and Equinix), make about 25.9% of the total number of data centers.

2. The average data center size is 100,000 square feet of space.

(Source: Data Centers)

Now that you know how many data centers there are in the US, let’s talk about some of the biggest ones. 

Most of them are rather small, the average taking up 100,000 square feet of space.

However, some of the biggest data centers are consuming that much power, equaling a medium-sized town. The largest one in the world is the Range International Information Group, located in Langfang, China. It occupies a space of 6.3 million square feet.

Among the largest data centers in the US are Switch SuperNAP, DuPont Fabros Technology, Utah Data Center, Microsoft’s Data Center, etc.

3. In 2016, the federal data center number equaled 10,000.

(Source: DataCentersGov)

Due to the fact that agencies are increasingly relying on data centers for their distinct missions, it has become very critical to efficiently manage the energy consumption associated with federal data center operations.

The efficient operation of federal data centers results in a reduction of energy consumption and costs, offering security, reliability, and resiliency benefits.

In order to prevent the proliferation of federal data centers and contain consumption and expenses among these facilities, the Federal Government introduced a number of programs and orders to advance these goals.

4. pCloud is on the top of the largest data storage companies with a revenue of $9.1 million.

(Source: Software Testing Help)

pCloud is a data storage company from Switzerland, with pricing for premium 500GB of $175 and premium plus 2TB of $350. The features that it offers are shared folders, set group/individual access levels, activity monitoring, etc.

Other companies comprising this exclusive list are: Zoolz, BigMIND, Polarbackup, PureStorage, Microsoft Azure, AWS, Dell EMC, IBM, NetApp, Oracle, and Seagate Technology.

5. Equinix is one of the top data center companies with a network of 202 data centers, serving 24 countries around the world. 

(Source: Software Testing Help)

Equinix is headquartered in Redwood City, CA, offering a few key services: management, marketplace, network edge, and consulting. The company has 7,273 employees and is set to install 12 further data centers. 

The other top data center companies for 2022 are: Digital Reality,  China Telecom, NTT Communications, Telehouse/ KDDI, Coresite, Verizon, Cyxtera Technologies, China Unicom, Amazon Web Services, and 365 Data Centers.

6. There are around 3 million data centers in the US.

(Source: Data Center Dynamics)

According to data center statistics, there is one data center for every 100 people. Even though these centers require quite a big amount of energy, they are bringing an opportunity to improve US energy efficiency.

For instance, if all of them were even 20% more efficient, then the cost savings could be up to $2 billion.

Actually, they have already started to change. It was projected that by 2020, 8% of all data centers would be powered by green energy. In reality, that’s still far from true but it shows the industry's desire to innovate and grow in this direction. For example, in 2019, Google achieved 96% renewable energy use in Oklahoma.

7. There are nearly 8,000 data centers globally as of January 2021.

(Source: Usitc)

The rise of data generation and use across many industries resulted in an increased need for data servers and data centers. So, according to the data center industry overview, there are 110 countries with such entities around the world.

Six out of them have the largest number of centers: the US (33% of the total), the UK (5.7%), China (5.2%), Canada (3.3%), and the Netherlands (3.4%). About 77% of them are located in OECD member states, while 64% are in NATO countries.

8. 130 countries together hold 4,903 indexed colocation data centers.

(Source: Data Center Map)

The largest number of them are located once again in the US (1,829). The UK comes next with 268, then Germany (229), Canada (178), etc. Some countries have only a single data center in their respective territories (Peru, Zimbabwe, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.).

9. The countries that have the most data centers in 2022 are the US, Germany, UK, China, and Canada.

(Source: Statista)

The US is at the top of yet another one of these lists with data center facts. According to Statista, the exact number of data centers in the US for 2022 is 2,751, followed by Germany (484), the UK (458), China (447), Canada (324), etc. 

10. The top data storage concern is data security (76%).

(Source: Software Testing Help)

With the skyrocketing rise of its popularity and demand, along come the dangers and concerns as well. Some of the most major ones are data security (76%), data loss (48%), insufficient budget (36%), unplanned downtime (30%), lack of sufficient recovery plans (29%), etc.

Data Center Infrastructure

11. The global modular data center market size is projected to reach $65.55 billion by 2027.

(Source: Fortune Business Insights)

In 2019, the global data center market size was “only” $16.56 billion. It’s predicted to reach almost $66 billion by 2027, exhibiting a 19% GARD for the forecasted period. 

The market size is driven by the rising demand for advanced prefabricated and green data center infrastructures across IT, telecom, healthcare, and other industries. The advanced data centers are the first to assist organizations in order to increase density and scalability while offering easy deployment benefits.

12. Google server room has up to 900,000 servers.

(Source: Data Center Knowledge)

Google servers are all about sustainability and efficacy. 

The Google data center electricity use is around 0.01% of the total global amount. This is no real surprise. Google crafts its designs and operations with the best and most innovative practices in mind. Google is the pioneer of running warmer facilities and designing chiller-less data centers which use less energy. At the server level, their custom servers feature a power supply integrating a battery.

13. Facebook owns and operates 18 data center campuses globally.

(Source: DGTlinfra)

Now you know the answer to one of the most FAQs—How many data centers does Facebook have? 18 may not sound like much, though there are some really immense numbers behind them. In fact, they operate on 40 million square feet, with an investment of over $20 billion.

14 of the campuses are located in the US, taking 34.2 million square feet with an investment of over $16 billion. The remaining 4 are located in Europe and Asia-Pacific. They occupy 5.4 million sq. ft. and cost $4 billion.

Data Centre Market

14. The global data center market is expected to grow by over 2% from 2019 to 2025.

(Source: Gray)

In fact, only the US data center market growth is expected to reach $69 billion by 2024. The greatest growth is in the Southeast and Pacific Northwest regions. The biggest investments come from hyperscale data centers and colocation service providers (owned and operated by the company it supports, e.g., Google and Apple).

15. The data center services market was valued at $48.9 billion in 2020.

(Source: Also)

In general, the data center market share is expected to reach about $105.6 billion by 2026. Some of the main drivers for this growth are digitization of existing processes, rise in the number of SMEs as well as different industries adopting digital technologies, progressing popularity of Over-The-Top (OTT) services, development of data-generating and data-hungry technologies, such as IoT and Machine Learning (ML).

16. In 2021, there were 7.2 million data centers around the world. 

(Source: Statista)

Compared to previous years, we can see a slight decline in these numbers. For instance, in 2015, there were 8.55 million, in 2017—8.4 million. 2021 has the lowest number by far. This could be due to the shift from quantity to quality and development, however. We shall see.

17. The IT spending on data center systems globally reached $237 billion in 2021.

(Source: Statista)

The Cloud IT infrastructure spending went beyond the $74 billion spent in 2020. The forecast is, though, these numbers will rise exponentially in the upcoming years. This global evolution of technology, including the need for data, has been growing rapidly, driven by hyperscale data center providers. In order to meet such demands, companies have been expanding and delivering new infrastructure options, with more than 600 hyperscale data centers.

Data Center Trends

18. Future data center trends show that by 2025, more than 75% of all enterprise-generated data will be processed and created outside of the traditional or cloud data centers.

(Source: Intelligent Data Centers)

According to Gartner, much of the data will be handled at decentralized Edge sites. In fact, by 2022, more than 90% of the enterprises will rely on a mix of on-premises/dedicated private clouds, multiple public clouds, and legacy platforms to meet their infrastructure needs. 30% of organizations say that migration to the cloud is a key challenge, but the most advanced cloud hosts usually give a helping hand there. Data center managers must make some tough decisions about their workspaces and workload.

19. Data center growth projections show that by the end of 2022, about 10% of the IT organizations from the whole world will go serverless.

(Source: Eescorporation)

Statistics indicate that the availability of data centers is the main reason for IT organizations going serverless. In addition, the spending on cloud services in Q1 2021 increased up to $41.8 billion. In comparison to just a year before that, there is a 35% yearly and 5% quarterly growth.

Wrap Up

Now you see the importance of data centers… especially with the help of our detailed collection of interesting and crucial data center statistics. Here to say, they are revolutionizing numerous industries all around the world. 

Nevertheless, despite the immense growth of data centers, and their usability, data security is still one of the biggest concerns that need to be worked on. We’ll see what the US (the country with the highest number of such entities), tech giants such as Google and Facebook with the largest number of data centers across the globe, or other key players do in this direction.