Data Center Investment News — 24/07/2026
July 24, 2026
Written by Angela Cáceres, Ensar Aljimi, Siddhi Pandit
Income to Invest $280m in Data Center Near Alexandria, Egypt
Egyptian real estate and industrial developer Income has announced an investment of approximately $280 million to build a data center near Alexandria, positioning the project as part of Egypt’s push to develop domestic digital infrastructure and attract regional cloud and colocation demand. The facility adds to a small but growing pipeline of large-scale data center investments across North Africa.
The project underscores continued interest from regional developers in markets outside the traditional EMEA hubs, where power costs, connectivity to subsea cable landing stations, and government incentives are increasingly cited as differentiators. Details on planned capacity, anchor tenants, and timeline have not been fully disclosed, and investors should await further specifics before treating the figure as final.
Google Increases 2026 Capex to $195–205bn as It Accelerates AI Data Center Buildout
Alphabet has raised its capital expenditure guidance for 2026 to a range of roughly $195 billion to $205 billion, reflecting continued acceleration in AI infrastructure spending. The increase places Google alongside Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta in a wave of upward capex revisions as hyperscalers race to secure compute capacity, custom silicon, and power for large language model training and inference.
The revised guidance highlights how AI demand is reshaping capital allocation across the hyperscale sector, with the bulk of incremental spend directed toward data center construction, networking, and Google’s TPU infrastructure. Investors will be watching subsequent quarters closely for signs of returns on this spending relative to cloud and AI product revenue growth.
OpenAI Reveals 3.2GW Data Center Project in Effingham County, Georgia
OpenAI has disclosed plans for a data center campus with a targeted capacity of 3.2GW in Effingham County, Georgia, marking one of the larger single-site announcements tied to the company’s Stargate infrastructure initiative. The project would add substantially to OpenAI’s growing footprint of dedicated AI compute campuses developed alongside partners including Oracle and SoftBank.
As with other gigawatt-scale announcements, the 3.2GW figure represents a long-range capacity ceiling rather than an immediate build, with construction typically phased over several years subject to power delivery, permitting, and financing milestones. The Georgia site adds to a growing list of Stargate-linked locations across the US as OpenAI seeks to lock in compute capacity to meet model training and inference demand.
Details of Four Data Centers Planned for Petersburg, Virginia Revealed
New details have emerged on four separate data center projects planned for Petersburg, Virginia, adding to the intense build-out already underway in and around the broader Northern Virginia and central Virginia corridor. Petersburg, historically an industrial city south of Richmond, has emerged as a secondary market as land and power become scarcer in Loudoun and Prince William counties.
The four projects reflect continued southward expansion of Virginia’s data center cluster, the largest in the world by existing capacity, as developers seek available substations and less constrained permitting environments. Specific capacities, tenants, and investment figures for each site have not been fully confirmed and should be verified as the projects progress through local approval processes.
Pure DC Secures $1.3bn Financing for Finnish Data Center Campus
Pure Data Centres Group has secured financing of approximately $1.3 billion to fund a data center campus in Finland, adding to a growing pipeline of Nordic projects that benefit from cool climates, renewable power availability, and government incentives for sustainable digital infrastructure. Finland has increasingly positioned itself as a hub for hyperscale and colocation investment in Northern Europe.
The financing package is among the larger single-market debt raises reported for a Nordic data center project this year, underscoring lender appetite for well-located European campuses with strong power fundamentals. As with similar announcements, the final facility size and phasing should be confirmed against Pure DC’s own disclosures ahead of publication.
120MW Data Center Announced for Lombardy, Italy
A new data center with a planned capacity of 120MW has been announced for the Lombardy region of Italy, adding to the growing cluster of facilities around Milan, which has become one of Southern Europe’s fastest-growing data center markets. The region benefits from strong connectivity, proximity to major enterprise customers, and improving power availability compared with historically constrained sites elsewhere in the country.
Italy’s data center market has lagged behind Northern European hubs such as Frankfurt, London, and Amsterdam, but recent investment in Milan and the surrounding Lombardy region suggests operators see room for growth as enterprise and cloud demand increases across Southern Europe.
US Data Centers to Consume Up to 194GW of Power by 2035, Report Finds
A new industry report projects that US data centers could consume up to 194GW of power by 2035, a substantial increase from current levels driven primarily by AI training and inference workloads. The projection adds to a growing body of forecasts warning that grid capacity, transmission infrastructure, and generation buildout may struggle to keep pace with data center demand growth over the next decade.
Such long-range forecasts vary significantly depending on assumptions about AI adoption curves, efficiency gains, and the pace of new generation coming online, and the 194GW figure should be treated as an upper-bound scenario rather than a certainty. Nonetheless, the report adds to mounting pressure on utilities and policymakers to accelerate power infrastructure investment to support continued data center growth.
AU$11 Billion Data Center Project Proposed Outside Melbourne, Australia
A data center project valued at approximately AU$11 billion has been proposed for a site outside Melbourne, Australia, representing one of the largest single announcements in the country’s rapidly expanding digital infrastructure sector. Australia has seen accelerating hyperscale and colocation investment in recent years as cloud providers and AI companies seek capacity in the Asia-Pacific region.
The scale of the proposed investment reflects growing confidence in Australia’s east coast as a data center hub, supported by strong connectivity and proximity to major population centers, though the project will still need to clear planning, power connection, and environmental approval processes before construction can begin. Final capacity and investment figures are typically subject to revision at this stage of development.
Ground Broken on 300MW Data Center in Pohang, South Korea
Construction has officially begun on a 300MW data center in Pohang, South Korea, a city historically known as a steel manufacturing hub that is increasingly diversifying into digital infrastructure. The project adds to a wave of data center development across South Korea as the country seeks to expand domestic cloud and AI compute capacity.
South Korea’s data center market has faced power grid constraints in the Seoul metropolitan area, pushing developers toward secondary industrial cities such as Pohang, which offer more readily available power and land. The groundbreaking marks a tangible step forward for a project that has moved from planning to active construction.
CyrusOne Announces Sixth Data Center Campus in San Antonio, Texas
CyrusOne has announced its sixth data center campus in San Antonio, Texas, further deepening its footprint in a market that has become one of the fastest-growing data center hubs in the state. Texas has attracted significant hyperscale and colocation investment in recent years thanks to available land, competitive power pricing, and a favorable regulatory environment.
The addition of a sixth campus in a single metro area reflects both strong customer demand and CyrusOne’s strategy of clustering capacity to serve hyperscale tenants efficiently. San Antonio joins Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin as key nodes in Texas’s expanding data center corridor.
Google Files for Two Data Centers in Vernon, Texas
Google has filed permits for two new data centers in Vernon, Texas, extending its infrastructure footprint into a smaller Texas market as the company continues to expand capacity to support cloud and AI services. The filings suggest early-stage planning rather than confirmed construction timelines, consistent with how large hyperscalers often stage permitting activity ahead of public project announcements.
Vernon’s selection reflects a broader trend of hyperscalers moving into smaller, less saturated Texas markets where power and land remain more readily available than in established hubs like Dallas-Fort Worth. Further details on capacity and investment are likely to emerge as the projects progress through local approval processes.
Malaysia Needs $20 Billion to Fund Next Wave of Data Centre Growth: S&P
A new assessment from S&P Global estimates that Malaysia will need approximately $20 billion in financing to support its next wave of data center growth, as the country continues to attract hyperscale investment amid regional demand shifts away from land- and power-constrained Singapore. Johor, in particular, has emerged as a key beneficiary of this spillover demand.
The financing figure highlights both the scale of opportunity and the capital intensity of Malaysia’s data center buildout, with debt and equity markets increasingly viewed as essential channels for funding continued expansion. S&P’s estimate should be understood as a market-level projection rather than a confirmed pipeline of committed capital, and figures may be revised as more transactions close.
Submer’s Rubix 2Data Centers Proposes 2GW Data Center at Former Kentucky Steelworks
Rubix Data Centers, the hyperscale infrastructure venture backed by immersion-cooling specialist Submer, has unveiled plans for a data center campus with an eventual capacity target of up to 2GW on the site of a former steelworks in Kentucky. The project would repurpose existing industrial land and grid connections, a pattern increasingly favored by developers seeking sites with available power infrastructure and reduced community friction compared with greenfield builds.
As with many multi-hundred-megawatt-to-gigawatt announcements in the current cycle, the full 2GW figure should be read as a long-term buildout ceiling contingent on power availability, permitting, and phased customer commitments rather than a confirmed near-term deployment. Rubix’s use of Submer’s liquid immersion technology also signals a broader industry shift toward denser, more energy-efficient designs suited to AI workloads.
Solaer Commits to Data Centers With a 197MW Energy Project in the Atacama Desert
Chilean renewable energy developer Solaer has committed to a 197MW solar and storage project in the Atacama Desert explicitly aimed at supplying power to data center customers, tapping one of the world’s most productive solar resources to serve compute demand in the region. The project reflects growing interest among data center operators in colocating with, or directly contracting, renewable generation to meet sustainability commitments.
Chile’s data center market has expanded steadily in recent years, driven by political stability, connectivity, and access to low-cost renewable power, though large-scale projects there have also faced local opposition over water and land use. Solaer’s move signals confidence that dedicated renewable capacity can be a differentiator in attracting hyperscale and colocation tenants to the Atacama region.
