You can’t scroll through a financial news feed today without seeing a headline about a major market segment, be it tech or industrials, getting completely reshaped by artificial intelligence.
If you’re seeking the clearest, most direct way to invest in the AI revolution, you need to look beyond the graphics processing unit (GPU) makers and go straight to the powerhouse infrastructure that makes AI possible: data centers.
Think of it this way: AI is the brain and the data center is the nervous system. The explosive growth of AI has created an insatiable demand for powerful data centers.
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Companies are increasing their data center spending so fast it’s difficult to keep up with current estimates. In fact, as we begin 2026, consensus estimates for capital expenditures by the “Magnificent Seven” and other top hyperscalers have been revised sharply higher. Investors can now expect these tech giants to pour upwards of $527 billion into AI and data center investments in fiscal 2026, according to Wall Street analysts.
Looking at the long-term horizon, the Dell’Oro Group — an independent market research firm specializing in data center infrastructure — forecasts that global data center capex will reach a staggering $1.2 trillion by 2029, with liquid cooling alone generating a foundational $7 billion in revenue.
That kind of spending is bound to have huge knock-on effects on the U.S. and global economies. After all, building new data centers and upgrading old ones to handle AI involves the industrial sector, materials, utilities, energy, defense companies, real estate and of course, the communications, information and technology sectors. In the final analysis, almost the entire market is — directly or indirectly — benefiting from the ongoing data center boom.
Not just any data center stock, exchange-traded fund (ETF) or real estate investment trust (REIT) will do, however.
“In choosing the right company to invest in, it’s always important to look at the fundamentals of the company,” as opposed to the technicals of price charts, says Roland Chow, financial planner and portfolio manager at Optura Advisors in Burlingame, California. Fundamentals like revenue and balance sheet growth, valuation, occupancy rates, and diversity of the customer base are key factors for long-term investors, he says.
With that in mind, here are seven of the best data center stocks, ETFs and REITs to buy now:
| Stock, ETF or REIT | Market capitalization | Forward dividend yield |
| Equinix Inc. (ticker: EQIX) | $79 billion | 2.4% |
| Vertiv Holdings Co. (VRT) | $68 billion | 0.2% |
| Iron Mountain Inc. (IRM) | $27 billion | 3.8% |
| Arista Networks Inc. (ANET) | $165 billion | N/A |
| American Tower Corp. (AMT) | $84 billion | 3.8% |
| Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) | $3.4 trillion | 0.8% |
| Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF (DTCR) | $879 million* | 1.3%** |
*Total assets, rather than market capitalization, are listed for this fund.
**30-day SEC yield.
Equinix Inc. (EQIX)
Equinix is far and away the largest data center REIT in the world. The company has a market cap of $79 billion and operates more than 270 data centers on six continents. This includes colocation facilities and xScale hyperscale data centers in North America, the EMEA countries — Europe, Middle East and Africa — and the Asia-Pacific region.
Its centers act as a neutral “meet-me room” where the world’s major networks, cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Azure and Google Cloud, and enterprises physically and virtually connect. This concentration of partners, including Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL), creates a powerful network effect, making it difficult for competitors to replicate and driving consistent customer retention.
This powerful ecosystem is now the essential underpinning for AI and hybrid multi-cloud strategies. In addition to operating data centers, it provides products like Equinix Fabric, which supplies the fast, low-latency data exchange AI models need to run. By offering the physical space and high-speed connectivity required to run such compute-intensive workloads, Equinix is well positioned for future growth, regardless of which companies win the AI technology race.
Equinix has a “strong income statement, balance sheet and cash flow,” according to Chow. Third-quarter results were strong, with a 10% increase in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) from Q3 2024 and a 14% increase in annualized gross bookings over Q2 2025.
Vertiv Holdings Co. (VRT)
Vertiv is the “picks and shovels” leader of the AI data center boom. With a market cap of $68 billion, the company specializes in the mission-critical power and thermal management systems that keep digital infrastructure running. AI clusters generate more heat and demand significantly more electricity than older, traditional servers. As such, Vertiv’s proprietary liquid cooling technologies and “grid-to-chip” solutions are becoming the industry standard for cooling high-performance GPUs like those from Nvidia.
By offering prefabricated modular solutions — essentially pre-built data centers — Vertiv allows hyperscalers to deploy capacity at the rapid pace required by generative AI. This is helping fuel strong revenue, and organic orders rose 60% year over year in the third quarter of 2025. Operating profit also increased by 39% over the same period.
With $9.5 billion in orders already lined up, investors aren’t left guessing about the company’s future; that massive backlog practically guarantees a steady stream of revenue through 2027.
Iron Mountain Inc. (IRM)
Iron Mountain is successfully executing a “dark horse” transformation from a legacy paper storage company into a high-growth data center REIT. While it still manages physical records for over 225,000 customers, including 95% of Fortune 1000 companies, its global data center segment is now the primary engine of its valuation. The company operates a global footprint of facilities across three continents, leveraging its long-term relationships with blue-chip enterprises to migrate their physical data into Iron Mountain’s secure, AI-ready digital vaults.
In the third quarter of 2025, the data center, digital and asset lifecycle management segment reported a remarkable 30% growth rate year over year. The company also reported a record quarterly adjusted EBITDA of $660 million.
For income-seeking investors, Iron Mountain offers a unique combination of AI-driven growth and REIT-mandated dividends. The company recently raised its quarterly dividend by 10% to $0.86 per share, supported by a record $393 million in adjusted funds from operations. This growing payout, paired with projected data center revenue growth of at least 25% for 2026, makes IRM a compelling option for those who want exposure to digital infrastructure without sacrificing yield.
Arista Networks Inc. (ANET)
Arista Networks provides the “synapses” of the digital brain. As a leader in high-speed ethernet switching, Arista designs the networking hardware and software that allow thousands of AI processors to communicate at lightning speed. While Nvidia provides the chips, Arista provides the 400G and 800G switches that prevent data bottlenecks, holding a commanding 43% market share in the high-speed port market.
The company’s competitive moat is built on its extensible operating system, a single software stack that works across all its products. By focusing on software-driven networking rather than just hardware, Arista maintains an elite net margin of nearly 40%.
Arista enters 2026 with a fortress balance sheet and accelerating demand for its AI-centric product roadmap. In its most recent quarter, the company posted revenue of $2.3 billion, a 27.5% increase year over year. Despite concerns about cyclical spending, Arista’s customers have committed to over $1.2 trillion in total capital expenditures, ensuring that the switches powering the next generation of AI models will remain in high demand.
[Read: 6 of the Best AI ETFs to Buy for 2026]
American Tower Corp. (AMT)
American Tower is the backbone of digital connectivity. While not strictly a data center REIT, it’s one of the world’s largest independent owners of communication real estate. The company owns and operates more than 149,000 wireless communications sites globally, including cell towers, distributed antenna systems and data center facilities. American Tower serves as the landlord, providing the physical space for mobile carriers to deploy their network equipment.
The company benefits from the highly attractive long-term, non-cancellable tenant leases that often span 10 years or more and include built-in annual escalations. This combination results in a remarkably predictable, inflation-resistant cash flow stream. The ongoing global rollout of 5G networks and the growing demand for edge computing, which brings processing data closer to the user, guarantee sustained demand for the company’s tower and fiber assets. Analysts are largely bullish on the company’s future.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)
The list of the best data center stocks wouldn’t be complete without at least one tech behemoth. Microsoft is arguably the most critical stock to include on your list, not as a direct REIT, but as the primary driver of data center demand. Its strength lies in its dominance of the hyperscale cloud market with Microsoft Azure, and its leadership position in the burgeoning generative AI space through its partnership with OpenAI and its Copilot platforms.
Microsoft’s fundamental strength is powered by the scale and profitability of its Cloud segment, which generates enormous revenue growth. This segment requires unprecedented capital expenditures to build out its global data center footprint to support the intense power and computing demands of AI models like GPT-4. So, by investing in Microsoft, you’re indirectly investing in the same value proposition provided by data centers.
Its strong balance sheet, highly profitable software products like Office365 and unique strategic positioning at the intersection of AI, cloud and software make it a fundamental anchor for any digital infrastructure investment theme.
Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF (DTCR)
Finally, when investing in any new industry or hot sector, diversification is often the best approach. A single stock may have incredible returns one year, then stagnate or fall the next as it battles fierce competitors. Why put all your bets on one company or REIT, when you could invest in two dozen? This is what DTCR provides.
The data center ETF holds 25 stocks, although the bulk of its assets are in the top 10 names in its portfolio. You’ll also get professional management to ensure your portfolio keeps up with the ever-changing tides in the data center and AI industries. The downside is that the price of this diversification and professional management is a 0.5% expense ratio.
Don’t expect an entirely smooth ride, however. DTCR is still a high-risk and concentrated bet with a tendency toward more volatility than its peers. If you’re bullish on data centers and invested for the long haul, though, it definitely merits a look.
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7 Best Data Center Stocks, ETFs and REITs to Buy originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 01/15/26: This story was previously published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
