The EMEA region will require more than £422 billion of capital investment to deliver the data centre infrastructure that has been promised so far. 

That’s according to the latest EMEA Data Centres Report from global property consultancy Knight Frank, which noted that £122 billion of capital expenditure was announced for the region in just the first half of 2025. 

It’s not shocking to see the amount of investment required for data centre development across EMEA is in the hundreds of billions, especially as the US tech giants are all opening their chequebooks and promising to spend big on AI data centres. In fact, it’s estimated that OpenAI alone will need to invest over $1 trillion to meet its compute capacity targets. 

According to Knight Frank, the current operational data centre stock in the EMEA region is estimated to be worth £226 billion, with growth of 11.4% expected in 2025 alone. Evidently, that growth is likely to accelerate further as the AI race heats up. 

Elsewhere in the report, it was revealed that aggregate supply across the region has surpassed 50GW, up 27.8% on 2024 as of H1 2025. Live IT capacity stands at 11.3GW after 649.6MW of new projects were delivered so far this year. A further 39.1GW sits in the pipeline as committed, under construction or at early planning, with 2.8GW already underway.

How the data centre market is heating up

We’ve already touched on the reasons behind the massive increase in investment in the data centre market, which is partially being driven by the AI boom, although Knight Frank also notes that the growing public cloud is also driving further growth. In fact, according to the company’s report, public cloud providers accounted for 61% of investment activity over the past 12 months, while AI contributed around 12%.

Of course, the growth of the data centre sector isn’t happening at the same pace all across the EMEA region. In fact, much of the investment influx is hitting areas that were already well-established data centre hubs, albeit the investment is reaching new heights. 

Paris, for example, has emerged as the fastest-growing hub and a major magnet for new capital. The market now requires £32.9 billion, including £17.2 billion added in H1 2025, with supply growth forecast at 22.3%. Total supply has risen 75.1% to almost 3.4GW, while live IT capacity has climbed to 611.2MW. Growth is being accelerated by rising AI requirements, including the French Government’s collaboration with Bpifrance, Scaleway, Nvidia and Mistral AI to develop a 1.4GW AI-focused campus.

Frankfurt leads for leasing activity and shows a £30.4 billion total capital requirement alongside a £19.4 billion market valuation. Take-up hit 207MW over the past year, with 159MW completed in the last two quarters, 93% driven by public cloud.

London remains the region’s largest market, requiring over £44 billion of development capital and valued at £32 billion. Capacity has grown 15.3% to 5.1GW, with live IT capacity edging towards 1.4GW.

Elsewhere other regions are growing in popularity, Milan requires over £33 billion and is forecast to expand by 47.9% this year, the fastest rate in the region. Dublin illustrates maturity with a comparatively modest £14.8 billion requirement but a high market valuation of £25.7 billion. Beyond Europe, Johannesburg is also showing momentum, with 34.3% supply growth forecast in 2025 from a smaller base.

Vacancy and pre-leasing squeeze

Despite record build, supply is struggling to keep pace with requirements. The live colocation vacancy rate across EMEA is 9.5%, but this drops to 5.2% for requirements above 2MW and to 2.9% above 5MW. In key hubs vacancy is already well below the regional average: Frankfurt 0.6%, Dublin 1.3%, Paris 3.4%, London 5.9% and the UAE 2.4%. Near-term availability for large footprints is either extremely limited or absent.

Pre-leasing is locking up future capacity. Knight Frank reports that 55.2% of all space under construction is pre-let, while 22.1% of committed capacity is already secured. Dublin, Milan and London are the clearest examples of demand outstripping supply, with pre-leasing rates of 94.8%, 92.6% and 87.8%, respectively.

Stephen Beard, Head of Data Centres, Knight Frank, noted, “The story of 2025 so far is one of scale colliding with scarcity. We are seeing record levels of supply delivered and planned across EMEA, yet demand from AI and cloud is growing even faster. Markets like Paris, London and Frankfurt are expanding at pace, but vacancy rates and pre-leasing levels reveal just how little truly available capacity remains.”