• AI-driven demand is reshaping global data centre investment as power constraints push growth beyond traditional hubs such as Northern Virginia, FLAP-D and Singapore.
• DC Byte highlights rising interest in markets including Johor, Bangkok, the Nordics, Iberia, Canada and parts of the US.
• Power availability, deliverability and infrastructure readiness are becoming key factors in where new data centre capacity is developed.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing where and how data centres are being built, according to discussions at DataCloud Global Congress 2026 in Cannes. Industry participants highlighted how AI-driven demand, power availability and deliverability concerns are reshaping investment decisions across global markets.

One of the strongest themes emerging from the event was the movement of demand away from traditional data centre hubs. According to DC Byte, constraints in established markets such as Northern Virginia, the FLAP-D markets, and Singapore are not reducing demand but redistributing it to other locations with greater room for expansion.

“As a whole, we’re seeing that those constraints are not really suppressing demand. All that’s really doing is redistributing demand to other places,” said Scott Roots, DC Byte’s Sales Director – EMEA.

The company pointed to growing interest in markets including Johor in Malaysia, Bangkok in Thailand, the Nordics, Iberia, Northern Italy, Northern Greece, Mediterranean landing-station cities such as Barcelona, Genoa, Marseille and Crete, as well as Canada, Texas, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Brian Dunleavy, Chief Commercial Officer at Viadex Global, also reflected on the pace of change following DataCloud Global Congress 2026, noting in a LinkedIn post that the digital infrastructure market is evolving quickly and requires a wider understanding of the full ecosystem. According to Dunleavy, focusing on one part of the market is no longer enough. He said industry participants now need to understand “everything from planning and power through to construction, supply chain, commissioning, operations, and ultimately the end-user workloads driving demand.”

He also highlighted comments from Tag Greason of QTS Data Centers, who said the traditional approach to building data centres no longer works.

“One of the biggest challenges facing data centre development today isn’t demand, power, cooling, or financing. It’s community acceptance. There are new acronyms for the people that appose the development of new sites which were used throughout the event. NIMBY’s (Not In My Back Yard) and CAVE’s (Citizens Against Virtually Everything). No one likes change but if you dont engage, you will face resistance,” Dunleavy wrote.

“As AI infrastructure expands globally, local communities increasingly want to understand how these developments will impact their environment and quality of life. The ServerDomes concept takes a different approach, reimagining the data centre as infrastructure that can integrate with its surroundings rather than dominate them.”

AI was a recurring topic throughout the congress, with speakers describing it as the primary driver of data centre demand across regions. The rise of AI workloads is influencing both site selection and infrastructure design. Traditionally, operators focused on locating facilities close to users and network infrastructure. However, AI training workloads are more location-flexible and require large quantities of power rather than proximity to end users. As a result, developers and investors are increasingly looking beyond established metropolitan areas in search of available power resources.

Power availability has become a central consideration for the industry. According to DC Byte data, total global IT capacity stands at 487GW, but only 65GW is currently live, while more than 28% remains in the pipeline. These figures highlight the growing importance of deliverability and the ability to convert planned projects into operational capacity.

DC Byte CEO Bernard Johnson noted that power constraints continue to influence investment decisions and risk assessments across the sector.

“AI is still the predominant growth driver,” Johnson said. “Everyone is talking about power constraints, as they always have been, but I think, really, power availability is one of the primary things that people are most concerned about.”

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