NIMBY pushback begins to bite US datacenter buildout

New datacenter capacity under construction in primary US markets declined in the second half of 2025, as community opposition increasingly disrupted planning approvals - a dynamic commercial real estate firm CBRE says is reshaping the industry.

According to CBRE's North America Data Center Trends H2 2025 report, this is the first time since 2020 that the primary-market pipeline shrank, ending last year at 5,994.4 MW, down from 6,350.1 MW at the close of 2024. The drop comes despite surging demand for compute power to support AI development.

As a result, the overall vacancy rate – the proportion of capacity available in those primary markets – fell to a record low of 1.4 percent, even though CBRE reports that supply increased by 36 percent year-on-year to 9,432 MW.

Average monthly rental rates for a 250 to 500-kilowatt (kW) requirement also rose by 6.5 percent to $195 ...