Colocation and wholesale services, collectively known as multi-tenant datacenters (MTDCs), form a key and growing part of the datacenter world, serving customers from a broad cross section of the global economy – from microbusinesses to large enterprises and regional IT services firms to global content and hyperscale infrastructure providers. The rapid growth in demand for MTDC services is a testament to the value that they offer regarding fast time to market, rich connectivity options and an asset-light leasing model.

Global MTDC capacity by available power grew 62.4% in the five years through 2019, a compound annual growth rate of nearly 10.2%, according to the 451 Research Datacenter KnowledgeBase. By 2024, 451 Research projects global MTDC capacity to expand by an additional 35.2%, when it will have exceeded 32 gigawatts of electrical power available to customer IT systems. This is comparable to the total electricity needs of a midsized country such as Spain or the average consumption of California.