Media and Entertainment Data Center Market Size, Share & Forecast to 2035

The Media and Entertainment Data Center Market is valued at USD 13.08 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach USD 27.57 billion by 2035, up from USD 11.66 billion in 2025, a CAGR of 8.99% from 2025 to 2035 (DC Market Insights estimate). What sets the money apart in this market is the own-or-rent split between the two largest buyer groups: Roblox runs more than 150,000 servers in 25 regional data centers it manages itself (Roblox annual report on Form 10-K, February 2026), while Netflix runs the vast majority of its computing on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and delivers video from its own Open Connect caches (Netflix annual report on Form 10-K, January 2026). That split puts 49.7% of 2025 spending, USD 5.79 billion, into public cloud bills rather than owned halls. The 2025 value rests on 2,300 megawatts (MW) of information technology (IT) load that media companies use x USD 5.07 million of yearly spending per MW = USD 11.66 billion. AI and recommendation is the fastest workload at 19.98% a year, because studios, streamers and game platforms now run inference on every title and every session; Asia Pacific is the fastest region at 10.99%, led by game platforms in China, South Korea and India.

Key Market Statistics: How Big Is the Media and Entertainment Data Center Market in 2026?

DC Market Insights values media and entertainment data center spending at USD 13.08 billion in 2026, 12.14% above 2025, as game platforms add servers for record player peaks and streamers add AI inference to cloud bills.

• Media and entertainment data center market size 2025: USD 11.66 billion
• Market size 2026: USD 13.08 billion
• Market size 2030: USD 19.10 billion
• Market size 2035: USD 27.57 billion
• CAGR 2025-2035: 8.99% (low case 7.13%, high case 10.49%)
• Largest component: cloud infrastructure services, USD 5.79 billion or 49.7% of 2025 value
• Fastest workload: AI and recommendation, 19.98% a year to USD 10.73 billion by 2035
• Largest end user: video games and interactive entertainment, USD 3.62 billion in 2025; fastest: film and TV production and visual effects (VFX) at 11.88%
• Leading region: North America, USD 4.55 billion or 39.0% of 2025 value; fastest region: Asia Pacific at 10.99%
• Largest country: United States, USD 3.85 billion in 2025; fastest large country: India at 14.70%
• Market leaders: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure in hosted capacity, with Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Supermicro and NVIDIA in owned servers (DC Market Insights assessment)

Executive Summary: Media and Entertainment Data Center Market Size, 2020-2035

The Global Media and Entertainment Data Center Market size was valued at USD 7.50 billion in 2020, reached USD 11.66 billion in 2025, and is anticipated to reach USD 27.57 billion by 2035, at a CAGR of 8.99% during the forecast period. Growth was 9.23% a year from 2020 to 2025, when streaming services scaled to hundreds of millions of members and game platforms moved to always-online play; from 2025 the mix shifts towards GPU capacity, which costs about 2.5 times more per MW-year than conventional servers.

Attribute	Value
Historical period	2020-2024
Base year	2025
Forecast period	2026-2035
Market size 2025	USD 11.66 billion
Market size 2026	USD 13.08 billion
CAGR 2025-2035	8.99%
Market size 2035	USD 27.57 billion
Segments covered	Component, deployment model, workload, end user, region, 12 countries

Owned media data centers grow only 6.32% a year to USD 7.28 billion in 2035, while public cloud spending rises to USD 15.64 billion and colocation to USD 4.65 billion. The chart shows the DC Market Insights series year by year.

Which Data Centers Count in the Media and Entertainment Market?

USD 11.66 billion in 2025: the data center capacity that streaming services, broadcasters, film and TV studios, VFX and animation houses, game publishers and platforms, music services and publishers own, colocate or rent from cloud providers to run their own services.

Included: public cloud infrastructure that media companies pay for (USD 5.79 billion); servers, storage and networking in owned and colocated sites (USD 4.20 billion); colocation and edge hosting fees (USD 839.04 million); power and cooling equipment in owned sites (USD 529.00 million); and construction and fit-out (USD 299.00 million). Content delivery caches placed inside internet service provider (ISP) networks, game servers, render farms, playout and transcoding systems, recommendation engines and corporate IT all count.

Excluded: social networks and search platforms whose video services sit inside hyperscale fleets, advertising technology, cinema projection and set-top boxes, consumer devices, the telecom networks that carry the traffic, and content production spending that is not computing.

How the segments fit together: every split (component, deployment model, workload, end user, region) sums to USD 11.66 billion in 2025 and USD 27.57 billion in 2035. The model counts 2,300 MW in use in 2025: 1,058 MW owned, 368 MW colocated and 874 MW in public cloud, of which 161 MW is GPU capacity and 506 MW sits at edge sites close to viewers and players.

Why Do Media and Entertainment Data Center Market Estimates Differ?

Published figures differ by several times because some studies add the hyperscale video fleets of social and search platforms; the DC Market Insights value of USD 13.08 billion in 2026 covers only media companies’ own computing.

Broader definitions add three things. First, the video capacity of platforms such as YouTube inside Google’s fleet or short-video apps inside social networks, which would multiply the total because those fleets are built for advertising businesses. Second, the content delivery network (CDN) capacity that providers such as Akamai sell to all industries, not only media. Third, total media technology spending, including software licences, cameras and broadcast equipment. Some studies also count telecom IPTV platforms, which DC Market Insights places in the Telecom Data Center Market report. Small and mid-sized publishers, regional broadcasters and independent game studios are in scope, mostly through cloud spending.

Element	In the DC Market Insights estimate	Why
Public cloud capacity rented by media companies	Yes, USD 5.79 billion (2025)	Capacity the company pays for
Servers, storage and networking in owned or colocated sites	Yes, USD 4.20 billion	Capacity the company buys and runs
Colocation, power, cooling and construction	Yes, USD 1.67 billion	Facility layer of that capacity
Video fleets of social and search platforms	No	Built for advertising businesses
CDN capacity sold to all industries	No, unless run by a media company	Belongs to network services
Broadcast equipment, cameras, software licences	No	Not data center capacity

Market Drivers: Why Are Media Companies Buying More Data Center Capacity?

Three drivers lift spending from USD 11.66 billion in 2025 to USD 19.10 billion in 2030: game-platform peaks, streaming scale with its delivery traffic, and AI inference on content and sessions.

Roblox Doubles Peak Players and Adds USD 186.3 Million of Infrastructure Cost

Roblox’s peak concurrent players rose from 13.9 million in April 2025 to 30.6 million in June 2025 (Roblox, June 2025), and the company plans server capacity about two years ahead. Its infrastructure and trust and safety expense rose 26% to USD 1.15 billion in 2025, with USD 186.3 million of the increase from data center and technical infrastructure, and its spending on property and equipment rose from USD 179.6 million to USD 441.0 million (Roblox, February 2026). DC Market Insights puts game servers and live services at USD 2.68 billion in 2025.

325 Million Netflix Memberships and 56 Tbit/s of French ISP Traffic

Netflix passed 325 million paid memberships and USD 45.2 billion of revenue in 2025 (Netflix, January 2026). Delivery load follows viewing: incoming traffic to France’s four main ISPs reached 56 terabits per second (Tbit/s) at the end of 2025, up from 50.8 Tbit/s, and Netflix alone carried 11.6% of it (Arcep, July 2026). The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates 7.3 zettabytes of fixed and 1.5 zettabytes of mobile traffic worldwide in 2025 (ITU, October 2025). Content delivery and edge caching reaches USD 2.58 billion in 2025 in the DC Market Insights model.

400 AI Models at Roblox Show Inference Moving into Every Session

Roblox operates more than 400 AI models at over 1.5 million inferences per second on on-premise and public cloud graphics processing units (GPUs) (Roblox, May 2026), covering safety, translation and recommendations. Streamers use the same pattern for ranking, artwork and ad targeting. AI and recommendation spending rises from USD 1.74 billion in 2025 to USD 10.73 billion in 2035, and GPU capacity from 161 MW to 1,157 MW.

Market Trends: How Are Media Companies Changing Where They Compute?

Media companies are renting more and owning less: public cloud grows 10.44% a year, while owned sites grow 6.32%.

Spotify, Weta FX and Netflix Show the All-Cloud Model

Spotify closed the first of its four data centers in December 2017 and the rest in 2018 (Spotify, December 2019), and now relies on Google Cloud Platform for the vast majority of its primary storage (Spotify, February 2026). Weta Digital, now Weta FX, moved most of its IT including rendering to AWS in 2020 (Weta FX, September 2020). Netflix keeps its compute on AWS but owns its delivery caches. These choices explain why cloud infrastructure services are 49.7% of 2025 value.

Broadcasters Move Playout onto IP and Shared Clusters

SMPTE ST 2110 replaced serial digital interface (SDI) cabling with managed IP networks for live video (SMPTE), and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Dynamic Media Facility reference architecture version 2.0 of April 2026 runs media functions on generic hosts in shared data center clusters or the cloud (EBU, April 2026). Media processing and playout still grows only 3.10% a year because shared clusters need fewer servers than dedicated chains.

Cloud Gaming Adds GPU Regions

Xbox Cloud Gaming reached 29 countries with its India launch in November 2025, and cloud gaming hours rose 45% year on year (Microsoft, November 2025). NVIDIA had almost finished moving GeForce NOW to RTX 5080-class servers by November 2025, with Stockholm the last region (NVIDIA, November 2025). Each region is a GPU hall close to players, which keeps edge sites at 22% of media MW in 2025 and 27% by 2035.

Market Challenges and Restraints: What Holds Back Media Data Center Spending?

Two limits keep growth at 8.99% a year: flat linear TV budgets and energy reporting on European sites.

Broadcast Viewing Falls 4% a Year in the UK

UK viewers watched 4 hours 30 minutes of TV and video a day at home in 2024; broadcast TV still held 56% of it, but broadcast viewing fell 4% to 2 hours 24 minutes (Ofcom Media Nations, July 2025). Broadcasters cut playout and distribution budgets as viewing moves to streaming, so broadcasting and pay-TV grows only 4.66% a year and its share falls from 15% in 2025 to 10% in 2035.

EU Energy Reporting Adds Cost to Owned Sites

European data centers used 68 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2024 and are projected to use 114 TWh, 3.2% of EU electricity demand, by 2030, according to the European Commission’s draft rating scheme of September 2026, which sets labels from 15 August 2027 (European Commission, September 2026). Media companies with owned sites of 500 kW or more must report energy and water data each year, which tilts new capacity towards cloud and colocation; owned-site electrical and mechanical spending grows only 4.37% a year.

Market Opportunities: Where Is the New Media Computing Demand?

The two largest new pools are GPU capacity for AI and rendering, and edge capacity for games and delivery, together worth USD 12.58 billion in 2035 for AI and rendering alone.

GPU Rendering and Virtual Production

Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) runs five permanent StageCraft LED volumes, three in Los Angeles, one at Pinewood in London and one in Vancouver (ILM, November 2021), and each volume renders scenes in real time on GPU clusters. Film and TV production and VFX is the fastest end user at 11.88% a year, from USD 1.17 billion in 2025 to USD 3.58 billion in 2035.

Edge Sites for Games and Delivery

Media edge capacity grows from 506 MW in 2025 to about 1,202 MW in 2035 in the DC Market Insights model, as game platforms such as Roblox, which runs 24 edge data centers plus two core sites (Roblox, June 2025), place servers within milliseconds of players. Hardware for these sites overlaps with the Edge Server Market report.

How Much Does a Media Company Spend per MW of Data Center Capacity?

USD 5.07 million per MW in use in 2025, DC Market Insights estimates, rising to USD 6.20 million by 2035 as GPU capacity and cloud bills lift spending per MW.

Year	IT load in use (MW)	Total spending per MW	Cloud rate, conventional (USD per kW-month)	Colocation rate (USD per kW-month)
2020	1,750	USD 4.29 million	USD 526	USD 181
2025	2,300	USD 5.07 million	USD 500	USD 190
2030	3,250	USD 5.88 million	USD 475	USD 200
2035	4,450	USD 6.20 million	USD 452	USD 210

Public anchors: Roblox spent USD 441.0 million on property and equipment in 2025 and Netflix USD 688.2 million (company 10-K filings, 2026). In the DC Market Insights model a media company pays about USD 500 per kW-month for conventional cloud capacity in 2025 and USD 1,250 for GPU capacity, against USD 190 for colocation space and power, which is why companies that run steady loads, such as Roblox, keep them in owned halls.

Which Rules and Standards Shape Media Data Centers?

At least seven named rules and standards decide where media companies place and how they run their computing, across all USD 11.66 billion of 2025 spending.

• EU Data Act, Regulation (EU) 2023/2854: applies from 12 September 2025; cloud switching charges are abolished three years after entry into force, from January 2027 (Source: European Union)
• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364: data centers of 500 kW and more report energy and water indicators, first by 15 September 2024, then each 15 May (Source: European Commission)
• EU data center rating scheme, draft C(2026) 3472: labels due by 15 August 2027 (Source: European Commission)
• EU AI Act: obligations for general-purpose AI models, including a copyright policy, apply from 2 August 2025 (Source: European Commission)
• SMPTE ST 2110: professional media over managed IP networks (Source: Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers)
• EBU Dynamic Media Facility Reference Architecture v2.0, April 2026 (Source: European Broadcasting Union)
• FCC NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) proposal of October 2025 to drop the ATSC 1.0 simulcast requirement (Source: Federal Communications Commission)

Media and Entertainment Data Center Market Segmentation: Which Segment Spends Most?

The largest component is cloud infrastructure services at USD 5.79 billion in 2025, video games and interactive entertainment the largest end user at USD 3.62 billion, and game servers and live services the largest workload at USD 2.68 billion.

By Component

Cloud infrastructure services hold 49.7% of 2025 value and grow fastest at 10.44% a year.

Component	2025 (USD million)	Share 2025	2035 (USD million)	CAGR 2025-2035
Cloud Infrastructure Services	USD 5,794.62 million	49.7%	USD 15,640.06 million	10.44%
IT Hardware	USD 4,200.28 million	36.0%	USD 8,749.40 million	7.61%
Colocation Services	USD 839.04 million	7.2%	USD 1,793.20 million	7.89%
Electrical and Mechanical Infrastructure	USD 529.00 million	4.5%	USD 811.07 million	4.37%
Construction and Fit-Out	USD 299.00 million	2.6%	USD 578.50 million	6.82%

By Deployment Model

Owned data centers hold 33.8% of 2025 value; colocation grows 9.23% a year as game platforms rent edge space.

Deployment Model	2025 (USD million)	Share 2025	2035 (USD million)	CAGR 2025-2035
Public Cloud	USD 5,794.62 million	49.7%	USD 15,640.06 million	10.44%
Owned Data Centers	USD 3,944.34 million	33.8%	USD 7,282.02 million	6.32%
Colocation	USD 1,922.98 million	16.5%	USD 4,650.15 million	9.23%

By Workload

AI and recommendation grows fastest at 19.98% a year and becomes the largest workload by 2035.

Workload	2025 (USD million)	Share 2025	2035 (USD million)	CAGR 2025-2035
Game Servers and Live Services	USD 2,679.94 million	23.0%	USD 5,220.69 million	6.90%
Content Delivery and Edge Caching	USD 2,580.69 million	22.1%	USD 4,547.05 million	5.83%
Media Processing and Playout	USD 1,985.14 million	17.0%	USD 2,694.55 million	3.10%
AI and Recommendation	USD 1,736.22 million	14.9%	USD 10,731.29 million	19.98%
Corporate IT and Rights Management	USD 1,687.37 million	14.5%	USD 2,526.14 million	4.12%
Rendering and Post-Production	USD 992.57 million	8.5%	USD 1,852.50 million	6.44%

By End User

Video games and interactive entertainment spend USD 3.62 billion in 2025, ahead of video streaming services at USD 3.50 billion; film and TV production and VFX grows fastest.

End User	2025 (USD million)	Share 2025	2035 (USD million)	CAGR 2025-2035
Video Games and Interactive Entertainment	USD 3,615.20 million	31.0%	USD 9,650.28 million	10.32%
Video Streaming Services	USD 3,498.58 million	30.0%	USD 7,995.94 million	8.62%
Broadcasting and Pay-TV	USD 1,749.29 million	15.0%	USD 2,757.22 million	4.66%
Film and TV Production and VFX	USD 1,166.19 million	10.0%	USD 3,584.39 million	11.88%
Publishing and Digital Media	USD 932.96 million	8.0%	USD 1,930.06 million	7.54%
Music and Audio Streaming	USD 699.72 million	6.0%	USD 1,654.33 million	8.99%

DC Exclusive: Media Own-or-Rent Map, 8 Companies from 150,000 Owned Servers to All-Cloud

This DC Market Insights model maps how 8 named media companies split their computing between owned, edge and cloud capacity, built on 12 inputs from company filings and company pages. It shows that steady, latency-sensitive loads (game servers, delivery caches) stay owned, while bursty loads (rendering, analytics, storage) go to the cloud.

Company	Owned or edge capacity	Cloud use	Source date
Roblox	150,000+ servers, 25 regional data centers; 24 edge + 2 core sites; 8 U.S. states and 11 countries	AWS for some storage and bursting	Feb 2026
Netflix	Open Connect: 18,000 servers in 6,000 locations, 175 countries	Vast majority of computing on AWS	Jan 2026 / Dec 2022
Spotify	None since 2018 (4 data centers closed)	Google Cloud for the vast majority of primary storage	Feb 2026
Weta FX	Most IT moved out in 2020	All-in on AWS, incl. rendering	Sep 2020
Microsoft (Xbox Cloud Gaming)	Expanded in-region server capacity; 29 countries	Not disclosed	Nov 2025
NVIDIA (GeForce NOW)	RTX 5080-class servers in each region; Toronto added	Own service	Jul 2026
Industrial Light and Magic	5 StageCraft LED volumes with GPU render clusters	Not disclosed	Nov 2021
Electronic Arts	Company data centers; some critical applications in only one site	Not disclosed	May 2026

Reading the map: the companies that own the most capacity run interactive or delivery loads where every millisecond counts; the all-cloud companies run catalogues, storage and batch work. DC Market Insights expects public cloud to rise from 38% of media MW in 2025 to 51% in 2035 as AI inference moves to rented GPUs.

Which Region Leads the Media and Entertainment Data Center Market?

North America leads with USD 4.55 billion, 39.0% of 2025 value, and Asia Pacific grows fastest at 10.99% a year to USD 9.93 billion by 2035.

Region	2025 (USD million)	Share 2025	2035 (USD million)	CAGR 2025-2035
North America	USD 4,548.16 million	39.0%	USD 9,374.56 million	7.50%
Asia Pacific	USD 3,498.58 million	30.0%	USD 9,926.00 million	10.99%
Europe	USD 2,565.63 million	22.0%	USD 5,459.30 million	7.84%
Latin America	USD 583.10 million	5.0%	USD 1,599.19 million	10.62%
Middle East and Africa	USD 466.48 million	4.0%	USD 1,213.18 million	10.03%

North America

North America spends USD 4.55 billion in 2025 and grows 7.50% a year. Roblox runs data centers in eight U.S. states, from Virginia to Washington (Roblox, February 2026), and most large streamers are headquartered here.

Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific spends USD 3.50 billion in 2025 and grows 10.99% a year, the fastest region. India had 1,092.79 million internet subscribers at the end of March 2026, using 25.51 GB of wireless data per subscriber each month (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, October 2026).

Europe

Europe spends USD 2.57 billion in 2025 and grows 7.84% a year. Its audiovisual market generated about EUR 142 billion in 2024, and U.S. players took more than 80% of subscription video on demand (SVOD) and in-video online advertising revenues (European Audiovisual Observatory, 2026); the UK commercial TV and online video market passed GBP 18 billion in 2025 (Ofcom, July 2026).

Latin America

Latin America spends USD 583.10 million in 2025 and grows 10.62% a year, led by Brazil, where Xbox Cloud Gaming expanded in November 2025 (Microsoft, November 2025).

Middle East and Africa

Middle East and Africa spends USD 466.48 million in 2025 and grows 10.03% a year; Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the region at USD 116.62 million.

Top 12 Countries in the Media and Entertainment Data Center Market

The United States is the largest country at USD 3.85 billion in 2025, 33.0% of the global total; India is the fastest large country at 14.70% a year.

Rank	Country	Region	2025 (USD million)	Share 2025	2035 (USD million)	CAGR 2025-2035
1	United States	North America	USD 3,848.44 million	33.0%	USD 8,133.81 million	7.77%
2	China	Asia Pacific	USD 1,516.05 million	13.0%	USD 3,860.11 million	9.80%
3	Japan	Asia Pacific	USD 583.10 million	5.0%	USD 1,268.32 million	8.08%
4	United Kingdom	Europe	USD 524.79 million	4.5%	USD 1,102.89 million	7.71%
5	South Korea	Asia Pacific	USD 466.48 million	4.0%	USD 1,158.03 million	9.52%
6	Germany	Europe	USD 408.17 million	3.5%	USD 909.88 million	8.35%
7	India	Asia Pacific	USD 349.86 million	3.0%	USD 1,378.61 million	14.70%
8	France	Europe	USD 326.53 million	2.8%	USD 716.88 million	8.18%
9	Canada	North America	USD 326.53 million	2.8%	USD 744.45 million	8.59%
10	Brazil	Latin America	USD 279.89 million	2.4%	USD 799.59 million	11.07%
11	Australia	Asia Pacific	USD 209.91 million	1.8%	USD 496.30 million	8.99%
12	Saudi Arabia	Middle East and Africa	USD 116.62 million	1.0%	USD 441.16 million	14.23%

Forecast Scenarios: How Large Could the Media and Entertainment Data Center Market Be in 2035?

Between USD 23.22 billion and USD 31.63 billion in 2035, with USD 27.57 billion as the DC Market Insights base case.

Scenario	2035 (USD million)	CAGR 2025-2035	What it assumes
Low	USD 23,219.44 million	7.13%	Media IT load 12% lower in 2035; GPU share 21% of MW
Base	USD 27,572.22 million	8.99%	4,450 MW in 2035, 51% in public cloud, GPU share 26%
High	USD 31,634.59 million	10.49%	Media IT load 10% higher; GPU share 31% of MW

Low Scenario

USD 23.22 billion in 2035 if streaming growth slows and studios use fewer AI tools than planned.

Base Scenario

USD 27.57 billion in 2035, with media IT load rising from 2,300 MW to 4,450 MW and GPU capacity to 26% of it.

High Scenario

USD 31.63 billion in 2035 if cloud gaming and AI-generated content scale faster across Asia Pacific.

Key Players and Market Share: Who Supplies Media and Entertainment Data Centers?

Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure together take about 65% of the USD 5.79 billion of 2025 media cloud infrastructure spending (DC Market Insights estimate); owned and colocated servers come mainly from Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Supermicro and Lenovo.

• Amazon Web Services
• Google Cloud
• Microsoft Azure
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
• Alibaba Cloud
• Tencent Cloud
• Akamai Technologies
• Equinix
• Digital Realty
• Dell Technologies
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise
• Supermicro
• Lenovo
• NVIDIA
• AMD
• Vertiv
• Schneider Electric

Company facts: Netflix’s technology and development expense was USD 3.39 billion in 2025, up 16% (Netflix, January 2026). Roblox’s 2025 increase in infrastructure cost included USD 186.3 million for data centers and technical infrastructure (Roblox, February 2026). Spotify’s cloud contract with Google includes minimum payment commitments (Spotify, February 2026).

Cloud Provider Concentration, 2025

The three largest cloud providers hold most media cloud spending because streaming catalogues, rendering and analytics sit close to their storage; Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud serve most Chinese media and game companies. DC Market Insights estimates the top three providers’ share at about 65% and expects it to stay above 60% to 2030.

Recent Developments in the Media and Entertainment Data Center Market

Six dated events from the last eighteen months shaped the 2026 outlook of USD 13.08 billion.

• In July 2026, NVIDIA announced a new RTX 5080-powered GeForce NOW server in Toronto (Source: NVIDIA)
• In May 2026, Roblox reported more than 400 AI models running at over 1.5 million inferences per second (Source: Roblox)
• In April 2026, the European Broadcasting Union published version 2.0 of its Dynamic Media Facility reference architecture (Source: European Broadcasting Union)
• In January 2026, Netflix reported USD 45.2 billion of 2025 revenue and more than 325 million paid memberships (Source: Netflix)
• In November 2025, Xbox Cloud Gaming launched in India, reaching 29 countries (Source: Microsoft)
• In June 2025, Roblox peak concurrent players reached 30.6 million, more than double April’s 13.9 million (Source: Roblox)

Research Methodology: How DC Market Insights Sized the Media and Entertainment Data Center Market

The USD 11.66 billion 2025 value is a bottom-up DC Market Insights model of 2,300 MW of media IT load in use, about 5% of the roughly 46 GW of enterprise and colocation-class capacity plus the cloud capacity media companies rent, priced component by component; see the DC Market Insights research methodology.

Model Inputs

Media IT load in use of 1,750, 2,300, 3,250 and 4,450 MW in 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2035; owned share 60%, 46%, 38% and 33%; colocated share 15% then 16%; public cloud the rest; GPU share 2%, 7%, 18% and 26%; edge share 18%, 22%, 25% and 27%. In 2025 servers cost USD 2.55 million per conventional MW-year and USD 8.20 million per GPU MW-year; cloud capacity USD 6.00 million and USD 15.00 million per MW-year; colocation USD 190 per kW-month, so 368 MW x USD 190 x 12 = USD 839.04 million. Owned-site electrical and mechanical spending is USD 0.50 million per owned MW-year and construction USD 0.13 million per MW in use. Sibling DC Market Insights estimates use the same base, including the Retail Data Center Market and the Data Center Colocation Market reports.

Bound Checks

Ceiling 1: USD 11.66 billion is about 2.0% of the DC Market Insights global data center market of USD 570.04 billion in 2025. Ceiling 2: Europe’s USD 2.57 billion is 1.6% of the EUR 142 billion European audiovisual market of 2024 (European Audiovisual Observatory). Floor: Roblox’s USD 441.0 million and Netflix’s USD 688.2 million of 2025 property and equipment spending, USD 1.13 billion together, sit well inside the owned and colocated media spending of USD 5.87 billion.