Built to capacity: Power Constraints and the U.S. Data Center Supply Response, 2021-2025
Oliver Golub
26/10/2026
This study focuses on the study period 2021-2025, when developers significantly expanded data center capacity across primary U.S. markets. However, the market became more, not less, scarce. Using ten consecutive editions of CBRE’s North America Data Center Trends series against JLL and Cushman & Wakefield market series, this study follows the U.S. data center market through a period of persisting shortages and expanding development, finding patterns between data center capacity and demand using academic research on the responsiveness of real estate supply and delays in commercial property development.
Between FY2021 and FY2025, a huge amount of new data center capacity was built, but prices kept rising, suggesting that new supply wasn’t sufficient to relieve the shortage. Furthermore, almost all available data center space was occupied by large tenants even before projects were completed, limiting newly constructed capacity. Thus, supply couldn’t increase extremely quickly even when prices and demand rose.
When comparing different CBRE reports, this study finds five cases where the numbers don’t perfectly match, identifying that when CBRE has revised an older number, the revised number was higher than the original one. It is important to take into account that some growth rates may have changed not only because the market actually changed, but also because CBRE later altered the starting number in the growth rate calculation. Instead of calculating a causal supply elasticity, this study aims to describe patterns and compare data across time and sources, identifying that growing inventory, rising rents, low vacancy rates, and strong pre-leasing consistently move together. Ultimately, this study aims to model how the U.S. data center shortage from 2021-2025 wasn’t a story of developers refusing to build; rather, it was about developers building rapidly while the infrastructure required to make those buildings “usable” lagged.