Global investment in data centers, including M&A deals, reached a record $61 billion in the first 11 months of 2025, compared to $60.8 billion for the whole of 2024, CNBC reports, citing data from S&P Global. This was achieved with fewer transactions – 104 compared to 129 for the whole of last year. Most of the deals took place in the US, followed by the Asia-Pacific region (APAC).
Investments grew amid a “global construction boom,” S&P notes. In addition, the surge in debt financing contributed to the upturn.
According to the agency, debt issuance in the data center market in January-November amounted to $182 billion, compared to $92 billion for the whole of 2024. This included Google (owned by Alphabet Inc.) raising $29 billion, Amazon.com Inc. raising $15 billion, and Meta raising about $31 billion.
The trend toward increased borrowing has sparked investor concerns. Oracle Corp. shares fell 5% on Wednesday after media reports that Blue Owl had refused to invest in its Michigan data center amid Oracle’s growing debt. Oracle denied these reports, but after they appeared, investors began selling Broadcom, Nvidia, and Advanced Micro Devices shares, and the Nasdaq Composite fell by a maximum of about 1.81% in a month. A week earlier, Oracle shares fell 12% after the publication of reports showing an unexpected increase in its capital expenditures.
In November, investors also actively sold shares in technology companies, fearing an AI bubble.
Yuri Struta, an analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence for the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sectors, said his team believes market concerns about AI and Oracle are temporary.
According to experts, these fears are unlikely to have a significant impact on the construction of data center capacity and M&A in this market.
At the same time, the construction of new data centers may be temporarily limited by a shortage of energy sources, making existing centers more valuable, Struta says.
“In Europe, data center capacity is expected to be built more slowly than in other regions, but it is unclear whether this will lead to a surge in M&A activity amid a shortage of assets,” he said. Overall, the analyst expects such activity in the data center market to intensify in 2026.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the already high valuations get even higher,” he told CNBC, noting that his team expects demand for AI applications to continue growing at a rapid pace next year.
The Irish low cost air carrier Ryanair is considering the possibility of opening its own data center in Ukraine, airline executive director Michael O’Leary has said in an interview with the Ukrainian Travel Gazette. “At a meeting with President [of Ukraine] Petro Poroshenko, we discussed the option of establishing our subsidiaries in Ukraine. In particular, we would be interested in the opportunity to create our own data center here. Now a similar center in Poland has more than 100 Ukrainian employees, and we need to expand the staff. It would be logical to create another such center for the collection and processing of information in the territory of Ukraine and employ here about 250 local IT specialists but not take them to Poland,” he said.
In addition, according to the expert, the airline in the long term is also interested in opening a center for aircraft maintenance in Ukraine, for which it is necessary to conduct an examination of the regulation of such activities in our country, including by European bodies.
He also noted that the airline is interested in the employment of Ukrainian pilots and stewards.
“But this is problematic enough, since we are a European airline, and Ukraine is not a member of the European Union. All of your pilots and stewards must verify their licenses under EASA requirements, and this a time consuming process,” he said.
At the same time, he noted that citizens of Ukraine already fly in the crews of the airline, and expressed hope their number will increase in future.
