According to new research from CBRE, strong appetite for data, fuelled by continued growth in cloud computing and social media, and the emergence of new technologies such as 5G and autonomous vehicles, is driving increased investor interest in data centres.

CBRE reported that 95% of survey respondents, which include many of the world’s largest institutional real estate investors, plan to increase their capital deployment in the global data centre sector in 2022. Capital allocated to the sector continues to expand with more than three-quarters of investors allocating over $100m of equity to the global data centre sector for 2022 and nearly half allocating over $300m.

Investor interest in the global data centres sector is robust across the risk spectrum, with half of respondents expressing interest in opportunistic/new development, value-add and core-plus offerings in 2022. Two-thirds of respondents are interested in pursuing opportunistic/new development investments this year.

Unsurprisingly, Silicon Valley is the most desirable US data centre market, favoured by 38% of investors surveyed. The reasons for the market’s appeal are its strong economic fundamentals, stability and availability of product, the survey found. Other primary data centre markets favoured by investors include Northern Virginia (36%), Phoenix (29%), Chicago (28%), Atlanta (27%), Dallas/Ft. Worth (26%), and New York Tri-State (24%).