The IT capacity of new-built hyperscale data centers is expected to more than double over the next six years thanks to the growth of artificial intelligence workloads, Synergy states.

The research group says that, at the same time, more data centers will be built, and older facilities will be retrofitted to support more capacity. This will overall cause hyperscale capacity to nearly triple.

Synergy analyzed 19 of the world’s largest cloud and Internet service firms, which meet Synergy's criteria for being considered hyperscale operators. By mid-2023, those companies had 926 major data centers in operation around the world.

The analyst firm is aware of a further 427 planned facilities, including more than a hundred launching per year.

The total number of worldwide data centers has doubled in the last five years, Synergy believes, although the mix of hyperscale data centers continues to change region by region, and owned versus leased.

However, not all analysts agree that the future is rosy. CCS Insight recently predicted generative AI will receive a "cold shower" in 2024 as the "reality of cost, risk, and complexity" replaces the hype of 2023.