North America data centres absorbed a record 25GW in H1 2026

It is whether local communities will accept the facilities being built to meet it.

JLL’s North America Data Center Report – Midyear 2026, published 11 August, recorded 25GW of net absorption in the first six months of the year, double the level from a year earlier and five times that of two years ago.

Vacancy has held at around 1% for a third consecutive year despite what JLL described as unprecedented construction activity, with 66GW of capacity currently under construction across the region, 95% of it pre-committed before completion. Rental rates have risen nearly 70% since 2020, with annual rent growth averaging 9%.

Financing has kept pace with demand. JLL reported a $700bn wave of data centre debt, which it read as a signal of investor confidence in permanent financing extending through 2028, with AI-related bond issuance reaching $250bn in the first half of 2026 alone across investment-grade and high-yield markets.

The acceptance gap

The report’s more striking finding concerns public opinion rather than market fundamentals. JLL found that while 79% of Americans support US leadership in AI, only 14% support data centre development in their own community, a 65-point gap the report identifies as the defining constraint on the next phase of growth.

Frontier markets, meaning newer, less established data centre locations rather than established hubs like Northern Virginia, now account for 77% of the construction pipeline, according to the report. That shift concentrates new development in communities with less prior exposure to the scale, water use and electricity demand of hyperscale facilities, precisely the conditions in which local opposition has proven most effective.

Andy Cvengros, JLL’s executive managing director and co-lead of US data centre markets, framed the challenge as one the industry cannot out-build. The market absorbed 25GW in six months on the back of hyperscalers, neoclouds and AI companies competing for scarce capacity, but community acceptance has emerged as the defining issue for this next phase of growth, requiring the industry and communities to find a path forward together.

Where this is already playing out

The pattern JLL describes at the national level mirrors what Capacity has tracked market by market. In Central Texas, data centres could account for 2.7% of the state’s water use by 2030, a figure that has become a focal point for community resistance even as operators continue to secure sites. In London, the recent approval of a Truman Brewery data centre on Brick Lane went ahead over unanimous local objection, illustrating that the acceptance gap JLL identifies is not confined to the US frontier markets driving its own data.

The tension is also on the agenda at Metro Connect Fall x Datacloud USA in Austin next month, where a dedicated Town Hall session on overcoming NIMBYism and expediting permitting gives the issue a standalone slot rather than treating it as background noise to panels on construction speed and financing.

8 sessions to watch at Metro Connect Fall x Datacloud USA 2026

Data centres could use 2.7% of Texas’s water by 2030: Where they land matters