Global data centre leasing activity hit a record high in Q1 2025 driven by demand from hyperscalers and cloud service providers, according to CBRE’s Global Data Center Trends report.
Due to the increase in leasing activity, the global data centre vacancy rate declined by 2.1 percentage points from a year earlier to a record low 6.6% in the first quarter.
Inventory across the four largest European data centre markets of London, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam increased by 7.2% over the past year, down on the 20% increase reported in the period Q1 2023 and Q1 2024.
The relative slowdown in new supply was pronounced in Amsterdam, where no new supply was added. Frankfurt and Paris had the biggest annual inventory growth, of 13.7% and 11.2%, respectively.
The overall vacancy rate among Europe’s top four data centre markets fell by 3.2 percentage points year-over-year in Q1 to a record-low 7.4%. Paris saw the biggest drop in vacancy across the globe with vacancy falling year-over-year in Q1 2025 to 7.7% from 16.1%.
Kevin Restivo, head of European data centres research at CBRE, said: “Limited availability of power is inhibiting growth of data centres in the largest markets across Europe. Some local markets, such as London, are expanding geographically to combat these challenges but many hyperscalers and cloud operators are having to consider alternative locations that are better equipped to deal with power constraints.”
Andrew Jay, head of European data centre solutions at CBRE, added: “Data centre demand is diversifying as AI advances at pace and as a result, operators with available capacity in key markets are commanding premium rental rates. In Europe, we’ve experienced rapid growth and investor interest in secondary markets which offer near-term solutions to capital deployment strategies.”
