Dell’Oro Group, a market research firm, has raised its 2030 forecast for worldwide data-center physical infrastructure manufacturer revenue to $120 billion, as its latest outlook shifts the main risk from demand to whether projects can be built and powered on schedule.
The forecast projects a 22% compound annual growth rate from 2025 to 2030 for the market covering data-center power, cooling, racks and related physical systems. That is a sharp revision from Dell’Oro’s January forecast, released in February, which projected a mid-teens compound annual growth rate and revenue above $80 billion by 2030.
Dell’Oro said most of the growth will come from additions to installed IT capacity rather than higher infrastructure spending per megawatt. North America is expected to lead capacity additions over the forecast period.
The delivery challenge
Research Director Alex Cordovil put the change more directly: “Demand is no longer the open question—delivery is.” He identified equipment lead times, construction labor, grid interconnection and community consent as the constraints setting the pace.
New York now provides a concrete example of the permitting risk. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s July 14 Executive Order 62 directs state environmental regulators to hold incomplete applications for discretionary approvals for new or expanded covered data centers while the state prepares a generic environmental impact statement.
The order covers facilities capable of consuming at least 50 megawatts and does not apply to applications deemed complete before July 14 or to local permits. The Hochul administration says the review will take up to a year.
The grid queue was already growing quickly before the pause. In February, the New York Public Service Commission said 11.9 gigawatts of load in the New York Independent System Operator interconnection queue was attributed to future large-load projects, with more than 8.3 GW of new load entering during 2025 alone.
Community opposition blocks projects
Community opposition has also accompanied measurable project delays elsewhere. A 2025 Data Center Watch report estimated that $64 billion of U.S. data-center projects had been blocked or delayed amid local opposition over the previous two years. The report cautions that opposition is not necessarily the sole cause of each delay because projects can also be affected by permitting, utility availability and infrastructure readiness. The National Conference of State Legislatures said 15 states considered data-center moratoriums or bans in 2026.
Record low vacancy rates
A separate North American measure shows how little capacity is available now. JLL, a commercial real estate services firm, said in its data-center report that vacancy remained at 1% for the third consecutive year and available capacity was largely limited to small, fragmented blocks. Many tenants securing space now are contracting for 2028 delivery, JLL said.
Thermal management leads technology growth
Dell’Oro expects annual net capacity additions to peak in year-over-year growth terms in 2026, then moderate while remaining in double-digit growth territory through 2030. Its forecast also makes thermal management the fastest-growing physical-infrastructure segment, with liquid cooling the fastest-growing technology as rack densities rise.
Dell’Oro expects the market to keep expanding, but its forecast now identifies delivery rather than demand as the open constraint.