Both states offer a 27.5GW worth of current and future supply
Georgia and Pennsylvania have become prominent US growth markets, according to a report by data center intelligence firm DC Byte.
Both states are located on America's eastern coast.
In terms of total IT load, defined by DC Byte as the summation of projects that are live, under construction, committed, and early-stage, Georgia has jumped from 1.6GW in 2021 to around 19GW in 2025. In that same period, Pennsylvania has jumped from 231MW to around 7.8GW.
Colocation demand takes up most of the IT load in both markets. Although the size of Georgia’s colocation market is larger than Pennsylvania’s, the proportion of Georgia’s colocation demand is around 60 percent, which is lower than Pennsylvania’s. Most of Pennsylvania’s colocation market is driven by wholesale colocation, which has jumped from 2MW in early-stage plans and 4MW committed in 2021 to around 3GW early-stage and 2GW committed in 2025.
In July, data center and energy firms, including Blackstone and Energy Capital Partners, pledged to invest $90bn in Pennsylvania’s digital infrastructure.
Hyperscale activity makes up the rest. In Georgia, early-stage capacity increased tenfold to 5.3GW following interest from Amazon: this includes an $11bn investment in January and the acquisition of 1,000 acres of land in August. Pennsylvania’s hyperscale market has also seen growth, going from no early-stage projects in 2021 to 616MW worth of them by 2025, but the market size is much smaller. Earlier this year, Amazon announced it would invest $20bn in data centers in Pennsylvania.
The report attributes Georgia’s growth to “abundant land, competitive power pricing, and supportive tax structures,” and notes that Pennsylvania is “gaining attention through investments in clean and diverse energy sources, as well as the strategic use of land assets to attract data center development.”
Within Georgia, the area around the capital Atlanta is the state’s most prominent data center hotspot. Pennsylvania has two hubs – one in Pittsburgh, the other in Philadelphia.
In terms of energy, Georgia predominantly relies on natural gas (41 percent) and nuclear (34 percent). It also intends to add 10GW of capacity over the next five years. Pennsylvania’s dependence on natural gas is even higher (64 percent), with the next largest source being nuclear (28 percent).
Both states have had to deal with backlash against the industry. In July 2025, Georgia enacted a statewide moratorium on reviewing large-projects following local concern and power constraints, and projects have been stymied at the planning stage following fierce local opposition. Developer Data Centric LLC met the same fate in Pennsylvania last month.
Source: DCD
