Asia Pacific Data Construction Cost Guide 2025

James B. Normandale Author & Head of Technical Services, Data Centre Group, Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific Market Overview

Regional Land and Construction Cost Key Findings

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This year’s report collates the most comprehensive land and construction cost data available in the market and provides an overview of some of the key themes impacting the sector.

 Locations Covered  Executive Summary  Key Themes in the Asia Pacific Data Centre Market #1 Power Availability & Cost #2 The Impact of AI #3 Investment Trends  Specifications & Key Assumptions  Individual Market Cost Index  Regional Development Cost Scenarios  Regional Land Cost Index  Regional Construction Cost Index  Construction Cost Market Movers

Regional construction costs continue to rise, but at a slower pace. Average construction cost inflation across Asia Pacific in 2024-2025 is 3.8%, down from 4.9% in 2023-2024. The top five most expensive construction markets remained unchanged from last year, albeit ranked differently. Only India and Australia saw the rate of construction inflation increase, in both cases primarily driven by strong demand from both local and international players. In all other markets, the rate of inflation slowed or plateaued as pandemic-induced supply chain disruption continued to unwind. India, Australia and Indonesia saw the greatest increase in construction costs (5%); Hong Kong China saw the slowest rate of inflation (2.1%). Across the region, powered greenfield sites suitable for data centres have become increasingly scarce, driving land prices higher.

It has been another year of strong growth for the data centre sector across Asia Pacific, driven by relentless digitization and accelerated by demographic tailwinds including a growing middle class and population growth. The ongoing maturation of the sector is evident in the build out now underway in emerging markets including Indonesia and Malaysia, while demand in established markets like Australia, Japan and South Korea remains strong. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) is yet to make a material impact in the region, both the scale of new developments and rack densities have increased in anticipation of the additional compute power AI will require. From an investment perspective, 2024 was punctuated by the Blackstone-led consortium’s $16 billion purchase of AirTrunk, which perhaps signalled the sector’s growth trajectory and the expectation of ongoing demand more clearly than any other indicator.

 Australia  Greater China  India  Indonesia

 Japan  Malaysia  New Zealand  Philippines

 Singapore  South Korea

 Thailand  Vietnam

 Appendix

This scarcity of land has encouraged a move towards innovative redevelopment of brownfield sites.

CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD | ASIA PACIFIC - DATA CENTRE CONSTRUCTION COST GUIDE 2025

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