Data Center Vacancy Hits 1.4%, a Record Low, CBRE Finds

Data center vacancy across North America’s primary markets fell to 1.4% in the first half of 2026, a record low, according to CBRE’s North America Data Center Trends H1 2026 report. It is down from 1.6% a year earlier, and it fell even as builders put a record amount of new capacity into the ground.

Why it matters

The headline tension is the whole story: construction is at an all-time high and vacancy is at an all-time low, at the same time. That combination only happens when demand is arriving faster than power can be delivered to sites, not when developers are short of capital or dirt. For a developer weighing whether to chase a data center site, CBRE’s numbers say the real gate is interconnection and entitlement timing, not financing. A site with power secured and a queue position locked in is worth more than a site with better land and no power date, and that gap is only widening.

The numbers

Primary-market supply grew 33.7% year over year to 10,903 megawatts, and capacity under construction climbed 24.8% to a record 7,481.1 MW, beating the previous peak of 6,350.1 MW set in the second half of 2024. Despite that build-out, 80.4% of the capacity under construction is already preleased, up from 74.3% a year earlier, and net absorption rose 11.7% to 1,456.2 MW. Northern Virginia, the largest primary market at 4,496.5 MW of inventory, is tightest of all: 0.24% vacancy with just 10.8 MW of available supply left standing, even with 2,420.2 MW under construction.

What’s next

CBRE frames the remaining pipeline bluntly: less than 1,500 MW of all capacity currently under construction across primary markets is still available, roughly six months of demand at the current absorption pace. For developers and construction teams evaluating a data center site, that means the power and entitlement timeline has to be secured years before delivery, not worked out after a site is under contract. The markets that keep adding supply fastest, Northern Virginia among them, are also the ones running out of anything left to lease.