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Digital Realty data center in Markham, Ontario

Digital Realty is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates, and invests in carrier-neutral data centers across the world. The company offers data center, colocation, and interconnection services. It was formed in 2004 by GI Partners.[2] As of June 2023, Digital Realty has over 300 facilities in more than 25 countries.[3]

The company is a signatory of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact (CNDCP), a self-regulatory initiative – drawn up with the European Data Center Association (EUDCA) and Cloud Infrastructure Services Provider in Europe (CISPE) – designed to make the industry climate-neutral by 2030.[4]

Digital Realty is working to switch to renewable power.[5][6][7] The company has 1 GW of wind and solar projects under contract in Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon, Arizona, and Virginia[7][8] and has installed 1.8 MW of solar panels in Kenya, Greece, Switzerland, and South Korea.[7][9] The company says it avoided emitting 1.8 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions (MtCO2e) in 2022.[7]

History

The company was formed in 2004 by GI Partners, which contributed 21 data centers that it acquired through bankruptcy auctions and from distressed companies at a 20%–40% discount to replacement cost.[2] On November 4, 2004, the company became a public company via an initial public offering.[10][11] At that time, the company owned 23 properties comprising 5.6 million square feet.[10]

In August 2006, the company acquired a property in Phoenix, Arizona, for $175 million.[12] By March 2007, GI Partners had sold all of its shares in the company.[2]

2010s

In January 2010, the company acquired three data centers in Massachusetts and Connecticut for $375 million.[13]

In January 2012, the company acquired a 334,000-square-foot data center near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for $63 million in a leaseback transaction.[14] That same month, the company also acquired a data center in San Francisco for $85 million.[15]

In April 2013, the company acquired the data center of Delta Air Lines in Eagan, Minnesota, for $37 million in a leaseback transaction.[16][17] In July 2013, the company doubled capacity at its data center in Chandler, Arizona.[18]

In May 2015, the company sold a building in Philadelphia for $161 million that it had acquired in 2005 for $59 million.[19] In October 2015, the company acquired Telx for $1.886 billion.[20] In November 2015, the company acquired 125.9 acres of undeveloped land in Loudoun County, Virginia, for $43 million and announced plans to build a 2 million-square-foot data center on the property.[21]

In July 2016, the company acquired eight data centers in Europe from Equinix for $874 million.[22][23]

In March 2017, the company announced a $22 million expansion of its data center in Atlanta.[24] In September 2017, the company completed the acquisition of DuPont Fabros Technology.[25][26]

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the company in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers, a case in which Digital Realty fired an employee who had complained internally about the elimination of supervisory controls and the hiding of cost overruns. After he was fired, the employee sued the company, saying he was protected by whistleblower provisions in Dodd-Frank.[27] The Supreme Court, citing Dodd-Frank, ruled that these protections only applied to whistleblowers who had first notified the SEC.[28]

Also in 2028, Digital Realty earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‘s (EPA’s) ENERGY STAR certification for energy performance in 24 of its data centers.[8] In December 2018, the company acquired Ascenty for $1.8 billion. At the time, Ascenty operated eight data centers in Brazil.[29]

In October 2019, Digital Realty announced the acquisition of European data center provider Interxion for $8.4 billion to “create a leading global provider of data centre, colocation and interconnection solutions”.[30][31]

2020s

In 2020, Digital Realty joined the Science-Based Target Initiative (SBTi), promising to reduce its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 68% and Scope 3 emissions by 24% between 2018 and 2030.[32][33]

In January 2021, Digital Realty said it would move its headquarters to Austin, Texas.[34]

In October 2021, the company entered the West African market by acquiring a controlling stake in Medallion Communications[35], a leading carrier-neutral data center operator in Nigeria[36].

In January 2022, the company announced a 55% stake acquisition in Teraco Data Centres[37]

In July 2023, Digital Realty received a Certificate of Conformity, certifying its adherence to the Self-Regulatory Initiatives set out by the CNDCP in Europe.[38]

On 10 September 2024, about 7:45 am, a Digital Realty data centre in Loyang, Singapore, caught fire. According to the Singapore Civil Defence Force, the fire “involved lithium-ion batteries housed in battery rooms on the third floor of a four-storey building”. Digital Realty said its employees were evacuated from the data centre without injuries. The fire affected Lazada and Bytedance‘s systems, as well as Alibaba Cloud’s Availability zone C in Singapore,[39][40] and possibly DigitalOcean, Coolify, and Cloudflare.[41]

In May 2026, the company opened its first data center in Barcelona, Spain,[42] broke ground on a data center in Paris, France,[43] and launched a new liquid cooling lab in London, UK.[44] That same month, it was also announced that Mistral AI had signed a capacity agreement with Digital Realty.[45]

References

  1. ^ “UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549”. sec.gov. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  2. ^ a b c “Digital Realty”. GI Partners.
  3. ^ “Digital Reality Trust”. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  4. ^ “Signatories – Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact”. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  5. ^ “How Digital Realty is Leveraging PPAs to Lead on Renewables”. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  6. ^ “Digital Realty invests in photovoltaics through power purchase agreement with ENGIE”. Intelligent Data Centres. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  7. ^ a b c d “Environmental, Social and Governance Report 2022” (PDF). Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  8. ^ a b “Digital Realty wins U.S. efficiency rating and commits to solar”. DataCenterNews Asia Pacific. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  9. ^ Swinhoe, Dan (2023-05-26). “Everything data center operators need to know about Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs)”. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  10. ^ a b “Digital Realty Trust, Inc. Completes Initial Public Offering” (Press release). GI Partners. November 4, 2004.
  11. ^ “Prospectus”. www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2026-06-10.
  12. ^ Miller, Rich (July 27, 2006). “Digital Realty Buys Phoenix Internet Gateway”. Data Center Knowledge.
  13. ^ Clark, Ryan (January 5, 2010). “$375M Nets Data Center Portfolio”. ALM.
  14. ^ “Digital Realty buys data center near Hartsfield-Jackson”. American City Business Journals. January 4, 2012.
  15. ^ Sailors, John (January 4, 2012). “Digital Realty Trust buys S.F. data center for $85M”. American City Business Journals.
  16. ^ Sumner, Justin (2013-04-08). “Digital Realty Acquires Delta’s Data Ctr for $37M”. CoStar. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
  17. ^ “Digital Realty Acquires Delta Facility”. benefitspro.com. 2013-04-02. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  18. ^ Ringle, Hayley (July 29, 2013). “Digital Realty Trust doubles capacity at Chandler data center”. American City Business Journals.
  19. ^ Kostelni, Natalie (May 6, 2015). “Center City building sells for $161M”. American City Business Journals.
  20. ^ “Digital Realty Completes the Acquisition of Telx”. Berkshire Partners. 2015-10-12. Retrieved 2026-06-10.
  21. ^ Clabaugh, Jeff (November 16, 2015). “Digital Realty plans second massive Loudoun data center”. American City Business Journals.
  22. ^ “Digital Realty Buys Eight Equinix Data Centers in Europe”. Archived from the original on 2025-02-20. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  23. ^ Smolaks, Max (2026-05-21). “Equinix is selling eight data centers to Digital Realty”. www.datacenterdynamics.com. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  24. ^ Karkaria, Urvaksh (March 15, 2017). “Data center operator Digital Realty plans $22 million Atlanta expansion”. American City Business Journals.
  25. ^ “Digital Realty acquires DuPont Fabros in $7.8B deal”. American City Business Journals. September 15, 2017.
  26. ^ Preimesberger, Chris (2017-09-15). “Digital Realty Completes Merger With DuPont Fabros”. eWeek. Retrieved 2026-06-10.
  27. ^ Lynch, Sarah N. (June 26, 2017). “U.S. high court to review scope of Dodd-Frank whistleblower protections”. Reuters.
  28. ^ “Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers (16-1276)”. www.scotusblog.com. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  29. ^ “Digital Realty Completes Acquisition Of Ascenty”. December 20, 2018.
  30. ^ Patrizio, Andy (2019-11-05). “Digital Realty acquisition of Interxion to reshape data-center landscape”. Network World. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
  31. ^ “Digital Realty, Interxion to combine in BIGGEST data centre transaction EVER at $8.4bn”. Data Economy. 2019-10-29. Archived from the original on 2020-07-17. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
  32. ^ “Digital Realty makes gains on data centre sustainability in Singapore with new cooling tower initiative”. Intelligent Data Centres. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  33. ^ Panettieri, Joe (2023-07-19). “Digital Realty Data Centers Leverage IBM ESG Software for Carbon Monitoring, Reduction Strategy”. Sustainable Tech Partner. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  34. ^ Joshua Bote (January 20, 2021). “In mass tech exodus, yet another firm is leaving the Bay Area for Texas”. Hearst Communications. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  35. ^ “Digital Realty to acquire Medallion Data Centres in Nigeria – Developing Telecoms”. developingtelecoms.com. Retrieved 2026-06-11.
  36. ^ Afolabi, Adebayo (2026-06-11). “4 Global Giants Powering Nigeria’s Cloud Infrastructure – TechCartel”. Retrieved 2026-06-11.
  37. ^ “Digital Realty acquires 55% stake in Teraco Data Centres”. TECH dot AFRICA. 2022-01-04. Retrieved 2022-01-04.
  38. ^ “Digital Realty attains climate-neutral conformity certificate”. DataCentreNews UK. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  39. ^ “Fire at Loyang data centre, SCDF operations still ongoing after a day”. Channel News Asia. 10 September 2024. Retrieved 2024-09-28.
  40. ^ Moises, Hazel (2024-09-10). “Data Center Fire Strikes Alibaba Cloud in Singapore”. W.Media. Retrieved 2024-09-28.
  41. ^ Sharwood, Simon (10 September 2024). “Alibaba Cloud struggles after blaze at Digital Realty Singapore datacenter”. The Register. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
  42. ^ “Digital Realty (DLR) Opens First Barcelona Data Center”. Yahoo Finance. Archived from the original on 2026-05-28. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  43. ^ Swinhoe, Dan (2026-05-21). “Digital Realty breaks ground on latest data center in Paris, France”. www.datacenterdynamics.com. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  44. ^ Swinhoe, Dan (2026-05-21). “Digital Realty launches liquid cooling lab in London”. www.datacenterdynamics.com. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  45. ^ Butler, Georgia (2026-05-21). “Mistral AI plans AI deployment at Digital Realty data center in Paris, France”. www.datacenterdynamics.com. Retrieved 2026-06-03.