WASHINGTON, DC–Northern Virginia remains the top data center market in the US, which is not that great of a surprise given the robust activity in the region. What is a surprise, though, is how fast and how far the region has outstripped other areas where data center operations are concentrated, such as Silicon Valley, over the past year.

Consider the following stats, according to a new report by JLL:

In June, there was 78 megawatts of net absorption in Northern Virginia for data center capacity. (Roughly one megawatt equals 150 square feet of data center space).

A mere four months later — the end of September — that number has grown to 105 megawatts, or approximately an additional 30 megawatts of net absorption, Allen Tucker, managing director of the Mid-Atlantic Data Center Solutions practice at JLL told GlobeSt.com.

A year ago, JLL reported Northern Virginia had roughly 37 megawatts in absorption for data center capacity and it finished 2015 with 62 megawatts, he continued. At that point, 62 megawatts represented the most demand seen in any market, he added.

Of course that was before September's new milestone of 105 megawatts was reached.

Year to date, Northern Virginia is now almost double the demand capacity for Silicon Valley, which has a net absorption rate of 57.6 megawatts. Other active markets include Chicago at 32 megawatts, the Northwest at 22 megawatts, Dallas (which used to be the No. 2 market last year) at 18 megawatts in net absorption and Phoenix at 14.1 megawatts.

Discounting AWS

Here, it is important to note that these numbers exclude AWS (or Amazon) data centers, which can have an outsized impact on a market. JLL discounts AWS because 1) Amazon doesn't disclose them and 2) because the company only operates its data centers in certain sections, or super regions, of the country and including the numbers would distort the true activity of a region's data center activity.

Why Northern Virginia

Northern Virginia has been a top data center location for years but there have been some changes that account for its accelerated growth, Tucker said.

One reason has been the hyper growth in cloud computing adoption over the last year. Also, Northern Virginia — or rather, Virginia Power, is taking steps to ensure that it remains one of the lowest cost power sources in the country. “The utility is building out more new dedicated substations than almost any other market in the US,” Tucker said. “There is almost as much power construction going on as there is data center development.”

Virginia has also extended its data center development and location incentive program to 2035 from its current expiration date of 2025. The state was among the first to offer such incentives. About 25 other US states eventually followed suit but many have redacted the incentive program since they weren't being used.

Finally ,there are three new subsea fiber cable linking the Virginia to Europe, Africa and South America set to be installed over the next three years even further increasing the state's capacity.

NoVa Now Represents 30% of US Market

All of which has translated into Northern Virginia taking the lead — the very far lead — in data center activity in the US this year.

“Last year end of year Northern Virginia represented 20% of entire US market,” Tucker said. “Now it has 30% of the entire US market.”

Every major data center provider — Equinix, CyrusOne, Coresite, Dupont Fabros, QTS, Digital Realty and AWS — have a footprint in the state, he said.

Instant Insights /

Northern Virginia Goes Long As Top US Data Center Market

Related Stories

Recommended For You