The U.S. Has 46% of the World's Data Centers

What we’re showing

This graphic breaks down the number of data centers by country, as of March 2024. Data comes from Cloudscene (accessed via Statista).

The U.S. is way ahead 🦅

With nearly half of the global total, the U.S. is the clear leader when it comes to computing. 

The U.S. is home to most of the world’s leading tech conglomerates (e.g. Microsoft, Amazon) which have been investing billions in digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence.

The cost of all this computing power is rising energy consumption. For example, the average ChatGPT query requires 10 times more electricity to process than a traditional Google search.

According to Goldman Sachs Research, data centers will be the largest driver of future U.S. electricity demand. By 2030, data centers will account for 8% of total demand, up from 3% in 2022.

Not all data centers are equal

One shortcoming of this dataset is that it only measures the number of data centers, and not their size. 

Size can also be measured by different metrics: Power consumption, physical area, and data capacity are all commonly used.