North Texas has claimed the No. 1 spot in the 2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison by Cushman & Wakefield, a global commercial real estate services firm, surpassing some of the world’s largest data center hubs.

The Lone Star State showed strong performance across multiple regions, with Austin-San Antonio and West Texas also ranking first in their categories. This rapid growth highlights Texas as a major destination for data center development, driven by companies seeking the extensive land and electricity required to support artificial intelligence (AI) and other computing needs.

According to Cushman & Wakefield, Texas is expanding at a pace that could eventually match or surpass Virginia, currently the world’s largest data center market by operating capacity. Dallas, in particular, has one of the largest pipelines of planned data center projects, second only to Virginia and Atlanta.

The report notes that development activity is moving outward from the established Dallas-Fort Worth market as companies look for vast land and power resources. Electricity has become the top factor in site selection, with utilities taking an average of 4.4 years to connect large new projects to the grid.

At the current growth rate, Texas’s total data center capacity could rival or exceed that of Virginia in the near future.

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