Only 20 state or metro markets account for 60 percent of hyperscale data center capacity in the world, new data from Synergy Research Group has found.

Northern Virginia in the US makes up 11 percent of the total, according to Synergy, with Beijing, China, the next highest in terms of market share at 6 percent.

Of the top 20 markets, 15 are in the US. Four are in the APAC region, three of which are in China, the outlier being Singapore; and just one is in Europe – Dublin, Ireland.

Tokyo, Japan, Sydney, Australia, and South Carolina have all dropped out of the top 20 markets, while markets such as Guangdong, China, and Indiana and Tennessee in the US have replaced them.

Outside of the top 20 markets, the next 20 largest markets account for another 19 percent of hyperscale data center capacity. This group includes more markets from the APAC region.

Synergy said the prevalence of US markets in the top 20 is due to the fact that 62 percent of hyperscale operators are headquartered in the country and the US accounts for nearly half of all cloud market revenue in key segments.

“A range of factors influence the choice of location for hyperscale infrastructure, including proximity to customers, availability and cost of real estate, availability and cost of power, networking infrastructure, ease of doing business, local financial incentives, political stability, and minimizing the impact of natural hazards,” said John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy Research Group. “With the extremely rapid growth in demand for AI technology and infrastructure, availability of power has become an ever more critical criterion, as has the ability to overcome or work around local community objections to building large data centers. These factors are heavily influencing the geographic distribution of future infrastructure developments.”