Digital Realty, the largest listed data centre operator, reported revenue of 1.9 billion dollars for the quarter, up 21 percent from a year earlier, with record leasing activity across both its hyperscale and interconnection businesses.
Total leasing for the quarter was 855 million dollars. Signings in the 0 to 1 megawatt category, including interconnection, exceeded the previous quarter’s record by 40 percent, and leasing above 1 megawatt reached 689 million dollars, which the company described as hyperscale bookings at a new high watermark in pricing. The total backlog rose to a record 2.5 billion dollars, including revenue contracted for 2028.
Chief executive Andy Power said demand was broad based across geographies, customer segments and deployment types, pointing to two sizable hyperscale leases signed in early July in Northern Virginia and Asia Pacific leasing that exceeded the prior regional record by more than 600 percent. Chief financial officer Matt Mercier highlighted the 500 kilowatt to 1 megawatt segment and a network architecture deployment by a leading AI laboratory across 15 of the company’s sites in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, used as interconnection hubs.
The build programme behind the leasing is large. Digital Realty spent 1.5 billion dollars on development capital expenditure in the quarter, 3.3 billion dollars so far this year, and has 1.5 gigawatts under construction at an expected total cost of 22 billion dollars, 63 percent of it pre-leased. Shares fell slightly despite the results and a raised full year outlook, amid broader uncertainty about AI data centre exposure. Power told CNBC the company has less than 2 percent exposure to the neocloud borrowers whose debt has concerned investors.