Data Center Investment News — 18/09/2026
September 18, 2026
Written by Angela Cáceres, Siddhi Pandit, Ensar Aljimi
Microsoft files to develop two-building campus outside Atlanta, Georgia
Microsoft has filed plans for a two-building data center campus at 5235 Stonewall Tell Road in Union City, Fulton County, roughly southwest of Atlanta. Known internally as ATL50, the project comprises two three-story facilities totaling 910,000 sq ft (84,540 sqm) across an 88-acre parcel, and required a Developments of Regional Impact application with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. The company has not disclosed an investment figure, with the campus expected to come online in 2032.
The filing deepens an already substantial Microsoft footprint in the state, which spans Fairburn, Douglasville, Palmetto, Rome, East Point and Tyrone. It also sits alongside a separate Union City development the company is pursuing with EdgeConneX at 4810 Stonewall Tell Road, reportedly covering 324MW across 2.1 million sq ft. Taken together, the two Stonewall Tell projects position Union City as a significant node in Microsoft’s southeastern capacity strategy.
Aligned breaks ground on gigawatt-scale data center campus in Pennsylvania
Aligned Data Centers has broken ground on Project Phoenix, a 2GW campus of three facilities at Shippingport Industrial Park in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, some 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The site sits adjacent to the former Shippingport Power Station coal plant, now being redeveloped as a natural gas energy campus, and the data centers will draw on dedicated on-site generation rather than the local grid — a structure that sidesteps the interconnection queues constraining development elsewhere.
CEO Andrew Schaap framed the project as “the future of responsible data center development,” describing the transformation of “a dormant industrial site into a foundational asset for the local community.” Shippingport Mayor John Erickson echoed the point, saying the development “honors that legacy, opening a new chapter by taking a historic site and rebuilding it into a modern engine of innovation.” The build is among the clearest examples yet of legacy generation land being repurposed for gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure.
Digital Realty, Colovore, Hut 8, CoreSite, and DataBank file to build data centers in Texas
Five operators have filed permits for new Texas capacity, underlining the state’s continued pull for large-scale development. Digital Realty’s DFW45 in Garland is a $300 million, 672,000 sq ft build delivering 80MW across ten 8MW suites, running from June 2026 to January 2029. DataBank’s DFW15 in Red Oak is a $425 million, 443,680 sq ft two-story facility forming part of a planned eight-building, 292-acre campus, scheduled from February 2027 to August 2029. CoreSite’s DA1 in Irving — a $200 million, 230,000 sq ft two-story build slated for April 2027 to December 2028 — marks the American Tower-owned operator’s first facility in the state.
Outside Dallas-Fort Worth, Colovore is developing a $280 million, 192,695 sq ft liquid-cooled facility in Hutto, Williamson County, offering 40MW across five 8MW data halls at densities exceeding 600kW per rack, with construction running from December 2026 to December 2028. On the Gulf Coast, Hut 8’s Beacon Point in Robstown, Nueces County, is a $399 million, 657,130 sq ft development targeting a compressed September 2026 to November 2027 schedule. The filings collectively represent well over $1.6 billion of committed capital across four distinct Texas submarkets.
Meta to expand Eagle Mountain data center campus in Utah
Meta is expanding its Eagle Mountain campus outside Salt Lake City, bringing total investment in the site beyond $3 billion. The new buildings will use closed-loop liquid cooling paired with dry cooling, a configuration suited to Utah’s arid climate and to the higher rack densities associated with AI workloads. Construction is expected to draw more than 1,200 workers at peak, with over 300 permanent roles once the facilities are operational.
This is the fourth expansion at Eagle Mountain since Meta broke ground in 2018, following additions in 2019 (500,000 sq ft), 2021 (900,000 sq ft) and 2022 (2 million sq ft across two buildings); the campus went live in 2021. Meta now operates more than 30 self-built data center campuses worldwide and has signaled an intent to reach tens of gigawatts of compute capacity within the decade — an ambition that makes continued densification of proven sites like Eagle Mountain a logical priority.
Edged tops out data centers in Council Bluffs, Iowa
Edged has topped out both buildings at its Council Bluffs, Iowa campus, known as Project Lola, located at College Rd and E Kanesville Blvd near Omaha, Nebraska. The two facilities, OMA01-1 and OMA01-2, each measure approximately 285,445 sq ft (26,520 sqm), with total campus capacity of around 200MW. Ground was broken in October 2025, the first building topped out in July 2026, and the second followed in September 2026 — a brisk delivery cadence for a build of this scale.
“Reaching this milestone reflects our continued commitment to investing in communities positioned for long-term growth,” said Bryant Farland, CEO of Edged US. “Council Bluffs offers the infrastructure, workforce, and business environment needed to support large-scale digital infrastructure.” Edged — founded by Aligned founder Jakob Carnemark and held in the US as a Koch Real Estate Investments portfolio company — is working with Turner Construction and Jacobs on the project, and has facilities operating or in development across nine further US states.
Digital Realty enters Turkey, plans 22MW facility in Ankara
Digital Realty is entering the Turkish market through a joint venture with Rönesans Infrastructure, beginning with a 22MW campus in Ankara and a planned follow-on expansion into Istanbul. Land, power and permitting are already secured and early construction is underway, with completion scheduled for 2028.
“By combining Rönesans’ deep expertise with Digital Realty’s global platform, this joint venture is well positioned to support growing demand for cloud, AI and enterprise infrastructure,” said Greg Wright, Chief Investment Officer at Digital Realty. Turkey currently hosts 81 data centers across 17 markets, heavily concentrated in Istanbul, with Equinix the most prominent international operator present. Digital Realty’s arrival — and its choice to lead with Ankara rather than the established Istanbul cluster — signals growing confidence in the country as a regional connectivity and AI hub.
Microsoft targets 38GW of data center capacity in 2032 – report
Microsoft is planning to grow its data center footprint from roughly 12GW today to 38GW by 2032, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the plans. The company brought 88 data centers online in FY2026, including 31 in the fourth quarter alone, but meeting the 2032 target would require averaging just over 1GW of new capacity every quarter for six years — a materially faster run rate than anything delivered to date.
The capital trajectory underlying the plan is equally striking: capex rose from $55.7 billion in FY2024 to an estimated $115.9 billion in FY2025 and $145.3 billion in FY2026, with roughly $175 billion projected for FY2027. Delivery will combine self-built facilities — including the AI-dedicated “Fairwater” sites housing hundreds of thousands of GPUs — with leased capacity from third parties such as CoreWeave, Nscale, Lambda, Iren and Nebius. The main headwind is regulatory: several US states are applying closer scrutiny to project approvals and to how infrastructure costs are allocated.
Former Digital Realty and Equinix executive named CEO of Anthropic-backed Theseus Infrastructure
Krupal Raval has been named CEO of Theseus Infrastructure, the data center platform launched last month by Anthropic, Macquarie Asset Management and Singapore’s GIC. Raval brings an unusually well-matched track record: five years at Digital Realty, followed by leadership of Equinix’s xScale hyperscale buildout, and most recently executive vice president and chief strategy officer at CyrusOne.
Theseus will develop, operate and lease infrastructure to Anthropic under long-term agreements, with facilities purpose-built to the AI company’s requirements and an initial focus on the United States, where Anthropic has earmarked $50 billion in data center spending. Raval described the mandate as building, running and leasing “the data centers Anthropic needs to keep up with demand for Claude,” while bringing construction and operational jobs into host communities. The appointment is a notable signal of how aggressively AI labs are now recruiting from the established colocation and hyperscale bench.
