Vacancy Near Zero: Brokerage Reports Point to Record Data Center Demand and Emerging AI Hubs

Vacancy Near Zero: Brokerage Reports Point to Record Data Center Demand and Emerging AI Hubs

New research from two of the largest commercial real estate services firms indicates that demand for data center capacity has reached record levels this year, with vacancy rates hovering near zero as artificial intelligence workloads continue to drive an unprecedented build-out of digital infrastructure.

According to separate reports from JLL and CBRE, the surge in demand has effectively exhausted available capacity in established markets, pushing hyperscale operators, cloud providers, and AI companies toward secondary and emerging markets where land, power, and fiber access can support new development.

The dynamic is giving rise to what industry observers are calling “AI boomtowns” — metro areas that previously played little role in the data center economy but are now attracting large-scale campus projects as developers chase available electrical capacity. Established hubs such as Northern Virginia remain effectively full, leaving power availability as the primary constraint on where new capacity can be delivered.

The demand backdrop is coming at a time when the shares of both brokerages behind the research have been strong performers. CBRE, which operates through advisory, building operations, project management, and real estate investment segments, traded at $149.34, up 5.17% from its previous close of $142.00, giving the company a market capitalization of roughly $43.7 billion. JLL, whose investment and management activities span office, industrial, retail, hotel, multifamily, and data center properties across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, traded at $364.40, up 4.14% from a prior close of $349.93, with a market capitalization of approximately $16.5 billion.

Both firms sit in the real estate services sector, and their research divisions are frequently cited benchmarks for tracking data center supply, absorption, and pricing. Near-zero vacancy, as the reports describe, typically signals strong negotiating leverage for landlords and operators of existing capacity, while pushing new capital toward development pipelines measured in years rather than months.

The broader implications extend beyond the brokerages themselves. Utilities, landowners in secondary markets, and construction and power infrastructure providers all stand to be affected by where the next wave of data center campuses lands. At the same time, the constraints on grid capacity and equipment supply chains remain a recurring theme in industry discussions about how quickly new capacity can actually come online to meet AI-driven demand.

What to watch

• Updated quarterly data center research from both JLL and CBRE, including vacancy, preleasing, and pipeline figures.
• Announcements of new data center campuses in emerging markets, particularly where utilities have committed new power capacity.
• Upcoming earnings reports from both firms, which may detail growth in their data center advisory and project management practices.
• Utility and grid infrastructure plans in established hubs, which will shape how quickly supply constraints ease.

Source: original release