Cost per megawatt (cost per MW)

Cost per megawatt is the total capital expenditure required to build one megawatt of critical IT capacity in a data center. It is usually quoted in millions of US dollars per MW. It covers land, shell, electrical and mechanical systems, and commissioning, and often excludes IT equipment such as servers and GPUs. Industry cost surveys from brokers and contractors have put new-build hyperscale and colocation capacity in the range of roughly $8-15 million per MW in major Western markets, with liquid-cooled AI halls at the higher end because of heavier power and cooling plant. Cost per MW is the denominator in yield-on-cost calculations and varies with redundancy level, local labor, and power-equipment lead times.