The explosive growth of AI-driven applications and their concomitant need for vast computational power have become the primary drivers behind surging data center development across the United States. In 2024, the largest data center investments in the U.S. were characterized by multi-billion-dollar capital expenditures from major technology firms, colocation providers and private equity firms, all reflecting the sector’s astonishing growth. With total U.S. data center investment expected to surpass $1 trillion by 2030, don’t look for a slowdown anytime soon.
Data center projects announced by companies including Meta, Amazon Web Services, Atlanta-based T5 and Silicon Valley’s ECL figure largely in Site Selection’s Top Deals of the year, determined by a points system determined by corporate facility investment and affiliated job creation as tracked by the magazine’s Conway Projects Database.
The Top 20 Deals of 2024 in North America and Top 20 Deals from elsewhere around the globe are presented here in ranked order by total points earned. Project locations are identified by specific community and by metro region where applicable.
ECL’s planned $8 billion data center in Houston, Texas, is a groundbreaking project known as TerraSite-TX1, designed to be the world’s first fully sustainable, hydrogen-powered, off-grid AI data center with a capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW).
Photo courtesy of ECL
