AWS, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia And Oracle: Five Data Center Deals Worth $676B Announced This Month
Data center technology spending skyrocketed 34 percent in 2024 to $282 billion, according to Synergy Research Group. It is soaring past a half a trillion dollars in the first month of 2025 as technology vendors and investment firms vie to build out massive AI compute.
Meta is planning a data center that’s bigger than New York’s Central Park, while Microsoft has pledged $80 billion to bring its own designs. But it was OpenAI, Nvidia, and Oracle that have so far come in with the largest figure, some $500 billion over four years at a site in Texas.
But one of the largest deals was announced by DAMAC, a UAE real estate firm that could emerge as an instant rival to some of the largest hypserscalers on this list, if the $20 billion it pledged to spend is translated into data center build-out, according to Forrester senior analyst Alvin Nguyen. He told CRN that on paper the investment would make DAMAC one of the largest vendors in the U.S., but said variables in location, supply chain, staff and construction are at play.
“This is a significant investment. Microsoft committed to spending $80 billion globally, with roughly half of this going to the U.S., so I would expect the hyperscalers to keep a lead, but DAMAC would be a major player immediately in terms of floor space,” Nguyen told CRN.
According to Synergy Research Group, worldwide spending on data center infrastructure equipment – the compute, storage, networking, and supporting technology – grew 34 percent last year to an all-time high of $282 billion. Public cloud infrastructure spending now accounts for $156 billion, up 48 percent, wrote John Dinsdale, chief analyst and research director at the Reno, Nev.-based group, in a research note.
“Take a bow generative AI and GPUs, which lit a fire under a market that was otherwise just chugging along nicely,” he wrote in a research note. “Growth was particularly strong in sales to public cloud providers, which jumped almost 50 percent, but even sales to enterprises increased by an unusually large 21 percent.”
Synergy Research Group says hyperscalers run 1,103 data centers and have a known pipeline of 497 facilities set to debut in the near future.
“The trend has always been for the critical IT load of hyperscale data centers to grow in size over time, but generative AI technology and services are power hungry and have supercharged that trend,” Dinsdale wrote.
In a research note, Dinsdale said the capacity inside hyperscale data centers will triple in size by the end of the decade as more investments pour in.
“There will also be some degree of retrofitting existing data centers to boost their capacity. The overall result is that the total capacity of all operational hyperscale data centers will grow almost threefold by 2030,” Dinsdale wrote.
According to his research, Dell Technologies remains the overall leader in server and storage segment revenues, with Inspur being a leader in server sales to public cloud providers. Cisco is the leader in the networking segment, while Microsoft features prominently in the rankings due to its position in server OS and virtualization applications, Dinsdale wrote.
Here are five of the biggest data center investments announced this month:
AWS
Investment: $11 billion
Announced: Jan. 8
In the first week of the year, Amazon Web Services announced that it is investing $11 billion in new data center infrastructure in Georgia to boost its cloud computing and AI capabilities.
That news comes after AWS unveiled plans in December to invest $10 billion in new data centers in Ohio.
Roger Wehner, AWS’ vice president of economic development, said the $11 billion investment into Georgia will drive “significant economic growth for the state” thanks to local leaders who have cultivated an environment that enables “AWS to make bold, forward-looking investments.”
“AWS’ ongoing infrastructure investments across the United States demonstrate our relentless commitment to powering our customers’ digital innovation through cloud and AI technologies,” said Wehner in a statement.
DAMAC
Investment: $20 billion
Announced: Jan. 7
Emirati businessman Hussain Sajwani, founder of real estate development firm DAMAC Properties, said he will invest $20 billion “over a very short period of time” to build data centers in the U.S. south and midwest aimed at serving the needs of hyperscale customers. The first phase of the project will take place in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.
“We’ve been waiting four years to increase our investment in the U.S. to a very large amount of money,” Sajwani told reporters. “We’re planning to invest $20 billion and even more than that if the opportunity and the market allow us. At the moment we’re planning $20 billion in data center catering for the AI and cloud business for the hyperscalers.”
Meta
Investment: $60 billion-$65 billion
Announced: Jan 24
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged up to 65 billion in data center spending this year as the company looks to build a “data center that is so large it would cover a significant part of Manhattan.”
It will take 2 gigawatts of power to bring the facility online. He said the company plans to have 1.3 million GPUs powered by 1 gigawatt of compute up and running this year.
“We have the capital to continue investing in the years ahead,” he wrote in a post to Facebook. "This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership.”
Zuckerberg expects Meta AI to “be the leading assistant serving more than 1 billion people, Llama 4 will become the leading state of the art model, and we'll build an AI engineer that will start contributing increasing amounts of code to our R&D efforts.”
Microsoft
Investment: $80 billion
Announced: Jan. 3
Microsoft President Brad Smith announced $80 billion in data center construction to meet the demand from emerging AI startups as well as the legacy, enterprise technology company, which are capitalizing on advances in AI models and chips. Half of the money will be spent on U.S. data center investments
“None of this progress would be possible without new partnerships founded on large-scale infrastructure investments that serve as the essential foundation of AI innovation and use. In FY 2025, Microsoft is on track to invest approximately $80 billion to build out AI-enabled datacenters to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications around the world.”
Smith said the capital is needed for Microsoft to keep its edge in the “global AI arms race.”
The Stargate Project
Investment: $500 billion over four years
Announced: Jan 21
The Stargate Project, the largest investment announced so far this year is also the most talked about with OpenAI’s Sam Altman and X founder and owner Elon Musk exchanging public messages about the financial capability of its backers as well as personal barbs via social media.
Altman’s OpenAI, as well as Oracle, Nvidia, SoftBank and MGX announced the deal, which creates a separate company called Stargate to build AI infrastructure for OpenAI. The half-trillion dollars in proposed infrastructure spending is expected to be carried out over four years, with $100 billion being spent in 2025.
Arm, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners, OpenAI stated in a press release.
“The buildout is currently underway, starting in Texas, and we are evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses as we finalize definitive agreements,” the company stated.
