Global property consultancy Knight Frank released its latest EMEA Data Centres Report, revealing that the region’s data centre industry required more than US$560bn in development capital to fund its expanding pipeline, including US$162bn announced in the first half of 2025 alone.
The total value of operational data centre assets across EMEA reached over US$300bn, reflecting their income-generating capacity, and this figure was projected to grow by a further 11.4% in 2025.
Digital Demand Fuelled UAE Expansion
The Middle East continued to strengthen its position as a leading player in the global data centre ecosystem. In the UAE, live capacity surpassed 376MW, with a further 19.2MW due to come online in 2025. This growth had been driven by substantial investment as Dubai and Abu Dhabi positioned themselves as digital powerhouses for the region.
Among the headline projects, OpenAI designated Abu Dhabi as a site for its global ‘Stargate’ platform, while Microsoft and du confirmed plans for a US$544mn hyperscale facility in Dubai.
Government initiatives remained a major catalyst. Abu Dhabi’s Digital Strategy 2025–2027 represented a US$13bn programme mandating sovereign cloud adoption, digital transformation and AI deployment across more than 200 public-sector solutions.
Despite extensive development, capacity constraints persisted. Vacancy rates in the UAE stood at just 2.4%, underscoring strong demand from AI-driven and hyperscale operators establishing regional operations. A continued focus on sustainable data infrastructure pointed to further expansion, consolidating the UAE’s role as a strategic digital hub linking Europe, Asia and Africa.
Rapid Growth Across European Data Hubs
In Europe, Paris emerged as one of the fastest-growing hubs and a major source of capital demand, with funding requirements reaching about US$43bn and total supply increasing by 75.1% to almost 3.4GW. Frankfurt led leasing activity, with 207MW of take-up recorded in the past year, 159MW of which was completed within the last two quarters.
London remained the largest data centre market in EMEA, requiring roughly US$58bn in development capital and valued at about US$42bn.
Capacity Crunch Intensified
Supply struggled to keep up with soaring demand. The overall live colocation vacancy rate across EMEA stood at 9.5%, falling to 5.2% for requirements above 2MW and just 2.9% for those over 5MW. In the UAE (2.4%), Paris (3.4%) and London (5.9%), availability was already far below average.
Pre-leasing trends further tightened the market, with 55.2% of capacity under construction and 22.1% of committed capacity already pre-let. Dublin, Milan and London exemplified this imbalance, recording pre-leasing rates of 94.8%, 92.6% and 87.8%, respectively.
Report: US$560bn capital need for EMEA data centres
