Top 10: Real Estate Companies
They say that data is the new oil and the real estate industry knows it. Demand for digital infrastructure is skyrocketing and these ten real estate companies are building facilities for data.
Here we explore the Top 10 real estate firms at the forefront of this digital transformation, who are using their expertise in property development and management to build the foundations of our increasingly connected world.
10. Prologis
2.8% of the world's GDP flows through Prologis’ distribution centres each year, while its 1.1m workforce serve customers worldwide. Its US$25bn data centre development arm is expanding in the hyperscale and cloud data centre industry.
Prologis works with Skybox Datacenters to develop data facilities across the US, from Chicago to Texas, at the intersection of logistics and digital infrastructure.
9. ESR
ESR is the largest real estate firm in APAC, which builds sustainable data centres and logistics centres, for those who have firm carbon neutrality goals. In Hong Kong, demand for data centre facilities and services is growing and ESR has worked with CLP Power and CLP to design and construct data and logistics centres.
“As APAC’s largest real asset manager powered by the New Economy, ESR has established an unrivalled track record and network of New Economy real estate in China and across the APAC region,” said Jeffrey Shen and Stuart Gibson, Co-founders and Co-CEOs of ESR.
8. Goodman
Goodman Group is a leading global industrial property and digital infrastructure specialist. The company has delivered 600MW of powered sites over the past 15 years and is now advancing its data centre capacity in Asia.
Goodman has delivered 0.6 GW of data centres and powered sites globally for its hyperscale and colocation customers over the past few years alone. Its global data centre portfolio consists of a number of new data centre and technology hubs, having secured power and potential data centre projects across 12 major international cities.
“Our ability to secure land and power in high demand locations in the tier 1 markets of Japan and Hong Kong has resulted in a very valuable power bank of 1.8 GW in Asia,” said Goodman’s Head of Asia, Paul McGarry. “Goodman is well positioned to continue to meet the growing demand for new, high value, high-tier data centre facilities in major cities across Asia.”
7. Colliers
Toronto-based diversified professional services company Colliers runs operations in 68 countries, with 22,000 professionals offering real estate advice, with annual revenues totaling US$4.4bn.
Colliers witnessed the rise in demand for data storage during the pandemic. Now, it works to support clients with asset lifecycle analysis, incident response, preventative and predictive maintenance and operational sustainability, for its data centre clients.
6. Avison Young
Avison Young's Data Center Solutions (DCS) offers support to real estate professionals in building data centre investment and development strategies, with expertise in site selection, leasing, debt and equity, joint venture structuring and investment sales. The DCS team has the necessary expertise and resources to fulfil data centre requirements, whatever the location or scale.
Yet Raul Saavedra, Executive Vice President at Avison Young's Data Center Advisory, said that he feels optimistic about future needs for computing, but that these are still early days for the data centre sector.
“I believe that the demand will continue as we become more efficient societies and that technology companies will shift back to investing,” he said in the Data Centres Report 2023.
5. Cushman & Wakefield
Founded in 1917, Cushman & Wakefield is a global commercial real estate services leader with 52,000 professionals across the world. Throughout the pandemic, the company saw an acceleration of corporate IT strategy, as companies rapidly shifted to the cloud.
“Optimisation of the shift to the cloud will continue throughout the next several years, creating further emphasis on cloud services availability and connectivity across platforms,” said Dave Fanning, Executive Managing Director, Data Center Advisory Group Leader at Cushman & Wakefield. “Construction of new products has skyrocketed, with the 1.6 GW under construction across markets studied last year swelling to 2.9 GW in this year’s edition.”
4. Knight Frank
Knight Frank is a global property adviser. As providers expand into new territories to add political and geographic diversity - as well as meeting new data protection legislation requirements - the increase in data centre facilities is becoming more widely distributed.
“Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Zurich and Warsaw, for example, have been recent targets for cloud availability zones,” said Stephen Beard, Partner and Co-Head of Global Data Centres at Knight Frank. “Meanwhile, there is industry consolidation to also consider. New investors looking to maximise facility value to serve the 5G data economy, will likely target sites for upgrades rather than decommissioning.”
3. Savills
There are 40,000 Savills staff in over 700 offices across the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. As a FTSE 250 company, the global real estate services provider is based in London, with worldwide reach. Savills advises corporate, institutional and private clients who want to acquire, lease and develop residential or commercial property.
Savills has recently reported that growth in data consumption has led to a higher demand for data centre specialists, yet data centre operators are already finding it difficult to hire qualified staff. Due to this, landlords are faced with higher labour costs for new data centre developments.
“Remote and (sometimes) unappealing locations are the main drivers for the labour and talent shortages in the data centre sector,” said Scott Newcombe, Head of Data Centres EMEA.
2. JLL
JLL are not just real estate professionals, the team includes finance experts and chartered surveyors. They are able to advise from a corporate standpoint as well as a real estate investment one.
“In a world fuelled by the internet, data and AI, demand will continue to rise for real estate to make it all happen,” said Tom Glover, Head of Data Centre Transactions, EMEA at JLL. “We saw record levels of take up, demand and preleasing for data centres in 2023, and expect 2024 to be another staggering year for activity in the sector.”
The organisation has been very vocal about how the surge in data centres has in part been driven by generative AI, leading to more competition for the best locations for future data centres. With AI only continuing to rise as it attracts more businesses, data centre companies will be under pressure to meet this demand, which includes the issue of how to design a data centre with AI technologies in mind.
A 2023 report from JLL highlighted how the “gold rush of AI” continues to drive sector growth, with Tom Glover stating that the second quarter of 2023 was a record-breaking period for European data centre demand and has shown no signs of slowing down.
1. CBRE
CBRE Group is a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, based in Dallas. It is the world’s biggest commercial real estate services and investment firm, supporting clients in over 100 countries. CBRE serves a wide range of clients with a range of services, including property management, investment management, property sales and development services. CBRE research explores the data centre opportunities for enterprises in the wave of AI and machine learning technology development.
CBRE pairs its market expertise with local intelligence to deliver solutions to keep its clientele ahead of relevant trends.
We also featured CBRE in Top 10: Data Centre Consultants.
CBRE’s research shows that the amount of data centre supply currently under construction in North America has jumped by 69% compared to a year ago. Reaching a record 3.9 gigawatts, research released by CBRE Group finds under-construction activity in primary markets has dramatically increased. However, a shortage of available power and longer lead times for electrical infrastructure has continued to delay construction projects from being completed.
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