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Demand for data center capacity continues to surge as companies race to implement hybrid cloud services, Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and more. Rapid consumption has pushed the data center vacancy rate to a record low of 1.9% in major U.S. markets, according to a June 2025 CBRE report. The strain on data center supply requires companies to rethink their entire data center acquisition strategy.
As this imbalance grows, American Tower is uniquely positioned to address customers’ data center needs. We have a global portfolio of more than 149,000 communications assets, which includes macro towers, rooftops, distributed antenna systems, and a highly interconnected footprint of U.S. data centers. Today, we have data centers in 12 U.S. markets, primarily from our acquisition of CoreSite.
American Tower has also identified more than 1,000 plots of land that we own (or have long-term leases for) capable of delivering multiple-megawatt data centers. And we are proactively transitioning several of these sites to “Construction Ready,” which will enable rapid data center development to support customer needs.
The traditional process of building a new data center can be time-consuming and capital intensive. From securing land and entitlements to coordinating utilities and constructing facilities, projects can take anywhere from 3 – 6 years to become operational, according to industry estimates from Avisen Legal.
Our Construction-Ready initiative compresses this timeline because we are in the process of receiving (or have already received) zoning approval, in addition to having confirmation for critical utilities, such as power and fiber.
In short: once a customer signs an anchor lease at a Construction-Ready site, we can break ground quickly once the building permits are finalized—bringing new data centers online in as little as 12 – 18 months. That’s half the time (or better) compared to traditional development.
American Tower is currently targeting data center development in growing U.S. markets. Our distributed real estate portfolio enables us to build data centers to address customer needs, such as enabling low-latency performance in targeted regions.
We are currently transitioning new data center sites in the following markets to be designated as Construction Ready by the first half of 2026:
More than 1,000 American Tower sites have the potential to support multi-megawatt edge data center infrastructure.
The new American Tower Edge Data Center in Raleigh provides a blueprint for future Construction-Ready deployments. Our new Edge Data Centers are designed to provide:
This combination of performance, reliability, and speed positions Construction-Ready data center sites as ideal platforms for modern enterprises seeking low-latency, high-resilience infrastructure.
American Tower’s Construction-Ready initiative represents a critical shift in data center deployment by removing common bottlenecks that delay go-live schedules.
For enterprises navigating a dynamic digital landscape, this speed-to-market advantage can have a material impact on business results. Our Construction-Ready model provides the infrastructure agility required in today’s performance-driven world.
Learn More About Our Edge Data Center in Raleigh Learn More About American Towers’ Data Center Portfolio Connect With an American Tower Edge Data Center Expert