The Big Tech companies are often compared against each other in many ways: how much money they make, market capitalization, and the newest flavor, generative AI capabilities.
But in their great strides to capture the digital realm, Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao charts how many huge data facilities do they need for all their services, analytics, and storage?
Sourcing information from Meta, Google, Microsoft, and some third-party estimates for Apple and Amazon, we find out.
Ranked: Big Tech’s Data Facilities
Cloud computing giants - Microsoft and Amazon - have data centers in the triple-digits to accommodate their customers’ burgeoning business demands.
However, there’s no one standard of how big a data center needs to be, so quantity doesn’t automatically translate into greater capacity.
Note: *Third-party estimates vary depending on the source. AWS is usually listed between 160–220 and Apple from 8–10. **Microsoft lists their count as “300+.”
According to Statista, AWS still maintains the biggest market share in the cloud computing segment (31%) even as Microsoft Azure edges ever closer (25%).
In fact, Amazon is aiming to spend $150 billion on more facilities over the next 15 years. Estimates say 26 data centers are currently under construction. All of this, of course, to chase the AI boom.
Despite dominating our digital lives however, Big Tech aren’t the only players when it comes to data center metrics. For example, Digital Realty, a colocation data center provider, would rank alongside Microsoft with 300+ data facilities.
If you enjoyed this post, and you’re wondering which Big Tech players have made their forays into AI, check out Ranked: The Most Popular AI Tools. We visualize the most popular AI tools of 2023 along with recent tech adoption cycles and the software products that defined them.
