The growth of data centers is a global phenomenon. We estimate that the US will see over $1 trillion invested in data centers over the next five years, with an additional $1 trillion invested internationally.5 The scale of these facilities is staggering. The largest data center currently under construction is an estimated 500 megawatts,6 which is equivalent to the power demand of 375,000 homes.7 As a matter of course, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently proposed building clusters of 5,000-megawatt data centers across the US,8 each of which would be equivalent to the entire US data center capacity built in the last 12 months.
Regions like Europe and Asia are still a couple of years behind the US in terms of demand growth. But with Asia representing two-thirds of the global population and accounting for just 15% of global data center leasing, the potential for growth in these regions is immense.9
Telco is no longer the top growth market for Nokia. Instead the company has turned its focus for growth to data center, said Nokia’s CEO Pekka Lundmark on it’s Q3 2024 earnings call today. “There will be others as well, but that will be the number one,” he said. Forget telco. Nokia’s CEO says data centers are top growth target