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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsIn AFCOM’s 2024 State of the Data Center Report, AI and the wider growth of digital services were emerging drivers of data-center construction and design change. The survey findings, reported by Data Center Knowledge on January 31, 2024, pointed to expected capacity pressure, interest in AI-capable facilities and modular construction, and persistent energy and cooling challenges. These are a snapshot of 2024 expectations—not a description of conditions in 2026.
What AFCOM’s 2024 report said about the data-center build-out
AFCOM’s eighth annual State of the Data Center Report described an industry experiencing a construction and design boom while confronting energy, cooling and sustainability constraints. Its central theme was that growing digital services—including generative AI—were changing what operators expected facilities to support.
Bill Kleyman, the report’s co-author and program chair for AFCOM’s Data Center World event, said: “This year, we delve into the intricacies of GPUs, the explosive growth of the data center sector, and, particularly, the adoption of AI solutions.” In the same article, Kleyman described respondents preparing to integrate AI-capable solutions, with support for generative AI applications as a leading motivation.
The percentages below are survey responses attributed to AFCOM in the 2024 Data Center Knowledge report. The article does not disclose the survey’s sample size, dates, sampling method or respondent composition, so the figures should not be treated as a measure of the entire industry.
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How AI was expected to affect capacity and facility design
Capacity expectations
Respondents anticipated that AI would add to capacity needs. In the survey as reported, 53% said new AI workloads would “definitely increase capacity requirements” for colocation, while 56% said they planned AI-capable deployments in their own data centers. Among those planning deployments, 43% identified generative AI as the most common use case cited.
These results describe what respondents expected or planned in 2024; they do not establish how much capacity was subsequently built or how much any particular workload requires. For a construction project, the practical question is not simply whether AI is in scope, but what capacity and rack-load requirements the intended workloads demand.
Power and cooling implications
The article noted that hyperscalers were adapting to higher rack-load requirements. Dell’Oro Group analyst Baron Fung argued that new facilities would need to be designed for AI from the ground up because of distinctive power and cooling requirements. That is Fung’s assessment, not evidence that every AI workload requires a new building or that every existing facility is unsuitable.
Fung also forecast continued additions of data-center space and described hyperscale cloud and colocation providers as racing to build facilities globally. His comments were an outlook reported in 2024, not a current construction tally. For project teams, they underscore the need to assess power delivery and cooling alongside rack density early in design rather than treating them as interchangeable upgrades.
What the survey said about modular construction
Modular and prefabricated approaches were on respondents’ radar, but the reported findings do not show that one construction method was universally preferred or performed better.
| 2024 survey finding | Reported share | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Hybrid approach combining prefabricated modules and traditional construction on the radar | 42% | Respondents considering a hybrid approach |
| Prefabricated power modules under consideration | 78% | Respondents exploring prefabrication |
| Prefabricated cooling modules under consideration | 72% | Respondents exploring prefabrication |
These are interest and consideration figures, not adoption rates or measured project outcomes. They do not compare cost, schedule, reliability or performance between prefabricated, hybrid and conventional construction. A project team evaluating those approaches still needs to test them against the facility’s capacity and rack-load targets, power availability, cooling design, site conditions, supply chain and applicable requirements.
How energy and sustainability fit into the build-out
The 2024 article reported that 72% of respondents planned to use renewable energy, while 27% said they were already doing so. The figures distinguish future plans from reported current use at the time of the survey; they are not current adoption rates.
Energy was not the only constraint identified. The article also cited power and cooling challenges, infrastructure threats and supply-chain difficulties. These concerns make energy strategy part of facility planning: teams must consider power access and delivery, cooling needs, and sustainability objectives together rather than treating renewable-energy plans as a substitute for infrastructure capacity.
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How to apply the findings to a construction decision
AFCOM’s survey provides a historical view of industry expectations, not a project specification or a comparison of construction methods. For an actual build or expansion, use the following questions to frame early design discussions:
- Capacity and rack loads: What workloads must the facility support, and what capacity and rack-load requirements follow from them?
- Power: Is adequate power available at the site, and can the facility deliver it to the planned equipment?
- Cooling: What cooling design fits the expected loads and operating requirements?
- Construction approach: Would conventional, modular or hybrid construction suit the project’s constraints and design needs?
- Energy and sustainability: How do power sourcing and sustainability goals fit the facility’s energy requirements?
- Delivery constraints: What site, supply-chain and regulatory conditions could affect the design or construction plan?
The report does not establish project-level costs, schedules or measured performance for these options, so it cannot identify a winning approach. Those decisions require project-specific engineering and delivery analysis.
How to read the report’s market forecasts
Data Center Knowledge also relayed Gartner forecasts made in 2024: worldwide IT spending was forecast at $5 trillion for 2024, 6.8% above 2023, and data-center-services spending was forecast at $261 million, a projected 7.5% increase. These were forecasts for 2024 as reported at the time, not verified actual spending or present-day estimates.
Gartner analyst John-David Lovelock connected enterprise technology use with spending, saying organizations were finding more ways to use technology and that IT had become revenue-producing. His explanation was a view on why enterprise IT spending might continue to grow, rather than a guarantee of a particular data-center build-out.
Source and scope
This article’s reported survey findings and attributed comments come from James Walker’s January 31, 2024 coverage in Data Center Knowledge: “AFCOM: AI Boom Fueling Data Center Construction, Design Innovation.” The linked AFCOM report was unavailable for independent review, and the coverage does not provide the survey methodology or respondent profile. Accordingly, the percentages are presented as findings reported by that article, with their original 2024 context.
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