The number of large data centers operated by hyperscale providers rose to 659 by the end of the second quarter, doubling from mid-2016, according to new data from the Synergy Research Group.

More than half of the major cloud and Internet data center sites in the United States and China. The next most popular destinations are Japan, Germany, England, Australia, Canada, Ireland and India, together with 25% of the total.

Among Hyperscale operators, Amazon, Microsoft and Google account for more than half of the Hyperscale data center track. However, the growth in numbers over the past four quarters has been above average in three Chinese companies: Bite Dance, Tencent and Alibaba.

The big three big investors

Amazon, Google and Microsoft were the biggest investors in the second quarter, taking into account both new data centers and updating existing features, followed by Facebook, Apple, Alibaba, Fight Dance and Tencent.

The study is based on an analysis of the data tracks of the world’s 19 largest cloud and Internet service providers, including the largest operators in SAS, IAS, PASS, search, social networking, e-commerce and gaming. The companies with the largest data center track are well-known major cloud providers: Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM. Each has 60 or more data center locations, each with at least three of the four regions: North America, APAC, EMEA and Latin America. Oracle, Alibaba and Tencent have significant presence in the data center. Other companies operate their data centers mainly in the US (Apple, Facebook, Twitter, eBay) or China (Baidu, JD.com).

“The growth of hyperscale data centers has been almost straightforward, with an average of 16 new data centers coming online every quarter over the past three years,” said John Dinstale, chief analyst at Synergy Research Group. “In addition, hyperscale operators add capability to existing features and consistently replace server hardware that has reached the end of its operational life.”

Strong growth bidens

All of this leads to massive and growing quarterly investments in data centers, Dinstale says. The big five U.S. hypercallers are still at the forefront of quarterly data center investments. However, Chinese hyperscale is growing fast, especially when Bite Dance stands out. This provider is actually out of the blue, but now ranks seventh in data center cost.