On 20 May 2026, Cushman & Wakefield released its 2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison and, for the first time, ranked Dallas the number-one primary data-centre market in the world — ahead of Atlanta, Virginia, Columbus and Johor. It is a genuine milestone, but it needs reading carefully: in the same report, Cushman states that Virginia remains the world's largest data-centre market by installed capacity, at 11.3 gigawatts of operational power. Dallas did not pass Northern Virginia on the meters already running. It passed it on a composite score that weights where large-scale capacity can realistically be added next.

What the ranking actually measures

Cushman's comparison is not a tally of megawatts. It evaluates 107 markets against 24 variables spanning market fundamentals, land, power infrastructure and the political and regulatory environment. This year's edition leaned harder on near- and mid-term scalability — the practical question of whether an operator can secure deliverable power and land on a workable timeline — and on that basis Dallas scored highest. Head of data-centre insights John McWilliams framed the moment by saying the industry has "entered a period of managed growth," with power delivery timelines, land availability and regulation now shaping site decisions as much as demand does.

The power point is the heart of it. Cushman puts the global average power-delivery timeline for a new large-load request at 4.4 years, stretching to roughly five years across the Americas and EMEA. In that environment, a market's score depends less on what it already hosts than on how quickly it can stand up the next gigawatt. Cushman's report puts West Texas at about 2.9 gigawatts under construction — which it says exceeds the entire amount underway across the EMEA region — and on that strength Austin-San Antonio and West Texas topped its secondary and tertiary rankings.

The pipeline behind the move

A separate report points the same direction over a longer horizon. In its 2025 North America Data Center report, published in February 2026, JLL projected that Texas would overtake Virginia as the world's largest data-centre market by 2030 — a forecast, not a present-day fact — on the strength of about 6.5 gigawatts under construction in the state. JLL also found that roughly 64% of North American capacity under construction now sits outside the traditional hubs, in places such as West Texas, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Ohio, and that lease rates across the region have risen about 60% since 2020. JLL's Curt Holcomb summarised Texas's structural edge simply: "There's no shortage of land in Texas."

On a narrower project-count measure, the crossover has arguably already happened. Aterio data visualised by Visual Capitalist recorded Texas with 140 data centres under construction as of March 2026, just ahead of Virginia's 136 — the only two states above 100. Project counts are not the same as megawatts, but they do show how the build-out is shifting toward markets with land, power, connectivity and favourable permitting. The Oracle–OpenAI Stargate project in Abilene reinforces the scale of Texas's AI-infrastructure pull, though reported cost figures vary and should be treated as programme-level reporting rather than a simple campus cost. Cushman's own figures show how fast the queue is filling: planned capacity across the Americas rose more than fourfold in a year, from 46.1 gigawatts in 2024 to 191.3 gigawatts by the end of 2025, with about 89% of capacity under construction in Cushman's dataset already pre-committed.

One more measurement caveat matters: Cushman's Dallas ranking is a metro-market result, while JLL's Texas projection is a state-level aggregation. The two point in the same direction — more new capacity moving toward Texas — but they should not be treated as the same metric.

Why Northern Virginia is still central

The counter-case is straightforward and worth stating plainly, because a single ranking cycle can mislead. Northern Virginia's 11.3 gigawatts of operational capacity, its fibre density and its established cloud on-ramps make it structurally central to global traffic in a way a pipeline number does not capture. What has changed is its room to grow: years of hyperscale expansion have tightened transmission planning, utility coordination and available power, and land is scarce. The same constraints are now visible in Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Dublin. Texas wins the scalability question; it does not yet win the installed-base question, and conflating the two overstates the shift.

Johor breaks into the global top five

For ASEAN readers, the most striking line in Cushman's ranking is that Johor placed fifth among the world's primary markets — a notable appearance for Southeast Asia in the global top tier. Johor's rise reflects the same logic driving Texas: it offers land and a power and approvals pathway that its neighbour, capacity-constrained Singapore, cannot match at scale, which is why hyperscale build has clustered across the causeway. A composite ranking that rewards near-term scalability was always going to favour markets with room to expand, and on that test Johor now sits alongside the largest American hubs.

Key Takeaways

  • Cushman & Wakefield's 2026 ranking placed Dallas first among primary data-centre markets for the first time, ahead of Atlanta, Virginia, Columbus and Johor.

  • The ranking is a composite of 24 variables across 107 markets weighted toward near-term scalability — not a measure of installed capacity.

  • Northern Virginia remains the world's largest market by operational capacity at 11.3 GW; JLL separately projects Texas to overtake it by 2030 on a ~6.5 GW pipeline.

  • Power delivery timelines (Cushman: ~4.4 years globally) are now the decisive site-selection variable, favouring land- and power-rich markets like Texas — and Johor, which reached the global top five.