Data Center REITs Compared: Equinix, Digital Realty, Iron Mountain, American Tower

Six publicly traded REITs give investors direct exposure to data centers in 2026: Equinix and Digital Realty as pure-play giants, Iron Mountain and American Tower as diversified operators with fast-growing data center segments, and Singapore’s Keppel DC REIT and Digital Core REIT as smaller APAC-focused vehicles. Equinix leads on market cap (~$102 billion) and dividend consistency (11 straight years of increases); Digital Realty leads on hyperscale growth (16% revenue growth in Q1 2026); the sector as a whole trades at roughly double the broader REIT market’s valuation multiple.

Key takeaways

• Equinix (EQIX) is the largest and most expensive: ~$102B market cap, ~2.0% dividend yield, ~19.5-29.8x FFO depending on methodology, 9-10% guided 2026 revenue growth.
• Digital Realty (DLR) is the fastest-growing large-cap: 16% YoY revenue growth in Q1 2026, ~8% core FFO/share growth guided, ~22.2x AFFO multiple, ~2.6% yield.
• Iron Mountain (IRM) is a hybrid: records storage core plus a data center segment that grew revenue 39.1% YoY in Q4 2025; ~3.3% yield, 11% guided 2026 AFFO growth.
• American Tower (AMT) is a tower REIT with a data center wing (CoreSite, +17% YoY sales in Q1 2026); highest yield of the group at ~4.1%, cheapest at ~15.3x P/AFFO.
• Sector valuation runs hot: data center REITs traded near 30x price-to-FFO in May 2026 versus ~14x for the broader REIT sector and ~8x for office — a bet on AI demand sustaining current growth rates.
• Singapore alternatives (Keppel DC REIT, Digital Core REIT) offer smaller-cap, higher-yield, single-market exposure — Keppel DC REIT’s DPU grew 11.3% YoY in 1H 2026, while Digital Core REIT’s DPU stayed flat despite 97% occupancy.
• The concentration risk is real: three hyperscalers can represent 60-80% of revenue at some of these REITs, giving tenants unusual leverage over renewal pricing.

For the underlying physical-market rates that ultimately drive these companies’ revenue, see our colocation price index and market statistics.

The REITs at a glance

REIT (ticker)	Market cap / scale	Dividend yield	Valuation (P/FFO or P/AFFO)	2026 growth guide
Equinix (EQIX)	~$102B; ~270-280 IBX facilities, 36 countries	~2.0%	~19.5-29.8x (methodology-dependent)	9-10% revenue growth
Digital Realty (DLR)	~$6.6B projected 2026 revenue; 300+ facilities, 50+ metros	~2.6%	~22.2x AFFO	~8% core FFO/share growth
Iron Mountain (IRM)	Diversified; data center segment minority of revenue	~3.3%	Not disclosed as pure DC multiple	11% AFFO growth (company-wide)
American Tower (AMT)	~$85.75B; CoreSite is minority segment	~4.1%	~15.3x P/AFFO	CoreSite sales +17% YoY (Q1 2026)
Keppel DC REIT (SGX)	Singapore-listed, pure-play APAC	Yield varies with SGD/unit price	Not covered here	DPU +11.3% YoY (1H 2026)
Digital Core REIT (SGX)	Smaller, DLR-sponsored, US/Canada assets	~7.3% trailing (FY2025)	Not covered here	DPU flat (1H 2026)

Sources: Motley Fool, stockanalysis.com, High Yield Landlord, company filings.

Equinix: the interconnection pure-play

Equinix is the largest data center REIT by both market cap and revenue, and the only one built primarily around interconnection rather than raw capacity. Its moat is more than 500,000 cross-connects across roughly 270-280 IBX facilities — every network that joins makes the platform more valuable to the ones already inside, which shows up as low churn and pricing power at renewal. FY2025 revenue reached about $9.3 billion, and management guides to 9-10% growth in 2026 with AFFO of $4.20-4.28 billion. The company has raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years, currently paying about $20.64 annually for a yield near 2.0%. For a full operational comparison against Digital Realty, including pricing by workload type, see our Equinix vs Digital Realty guide.

The tradeoff for that quality is price: Equinix’s multiple sits at the high end of an already-expensive sector, so most of the growth case is arguably reflected in the stock already.

Digital Realty: scale and the fastest AI-driven growth

Digital Realty took over the wholesale side of the business — hyperscale capacity blocks of 250 kW to tens of megawatts across 300+ facilities in 50+ metros — and added retail colocation and European density through the Interxion and Telx acquisitions. Growth has accelerated sharply on AI demand: Q1 2026 revenue hit $1.6 billion, up 16% year over year, on the largest hyperscale lease in company history, and more than half of quarterly bookings are now AI-related. Management guides core FFO per share to $7.90-8.00 in 2026, roughly 8% growth. The clearest private-market comparable for how these assets are priced came from Digital Realty’s own late-2025 purchase of Blackstone’s stake in three fully leased Northern Virginia facilities: a $7.8 billion gross value, an initial stabilized cap rate above 6.5%, 15-year leases, and 3.6% annual escalators — useful reference points whether you’re pricing the stock or a direct asset. Details on routes into direct ownership are in our data center investment guide.

Iron Mountain and American Tower: diversified plays with data center upside

Neither Iron Mountain nor American Tower is a pure data center REIT, and that matters for how you read their numbers.

Iron Mountain built its business on physical records storage and has layered a data center segment on top, now growing far faster than the legacy business. Data center revenue rose 39.1% year over year in Q4 2025, and normalized FFO per share climbed to $0.99 in Q1 2026 from $0.77 a year earlier — company-wide 2026 AFFO growth is guided at 11%. The ~3.3% dividend yield is the second-highest of the large-cap names here, reflecting the market’s discount for the slower-growing storage core diluting the data center growth story.

American Tower is fundamentally a global cell-tower operator that acquired CoreSite in 2021 for its data center exposure. CoreSite sales grew nearly 17% year over year in Q1 2026, and the company has outlined plans to roughly triple CoreSite’s capacity — but towers still generate the majority of revenue. At a ~4.1% yield and ~15.3x P/AFFO, American Tower is the cheapest and highest-yielding name in this comparison, largely because the market prices it primarily as a tower REIT with a data center option attached, not as an AI infrastructure pure-play.

Singapore’s smaller pure-plays: Keppel DC REIT and Digital Core REIT

Investors who want APAC-specific or smaller-cap exposure have two SGX-listed alternatives, both structurally different from the US giants.

Keppel DC REIT posted a first-half 2026 distribution per unit of 5.714 Singapore cents, up 11.3% year over year, with distributable income growing 19%, sponsored and managed within the Keppel group’s broader infrastructure platform. Digital Core REIT, sponsored by Digital Realty and holding US and Canadian data center assets, held its first-half 2026 DPU flat at 1.80 US cents even as occupancy hit 97%, because higher operating costs offset revenue gains — a reminder that occupancy strength does not automatically translate into distribution growth. Its FY2025 DPU of US$0.036 implies a trailing yield around 7.3%, well above the large-cap US names, compensating investors for smaller scale and lower liquidity.

Valuation: a sector priced for continued AI growth

Data center REITs are the most expensive major property sector by a wide margin. In May 2026 the group traded near 30x price-to-FFO, against roughly 14x for the REIT sector overall and about 8x for office REITs — investors are pricing in AI-driven demand growth well beyond the current leasing cycle. That premium was earned on results: sector-wide FFO and NOI grew 29.4% and 15.8% year over year respectively, and total returns hit 33.2% in the first half of 2026 alone, with the top three names returning 39-45% over twelve months.

Sector segment	P/FFO multiple (May 2026)	Context
Data center REITs	~30x	Priced for sustained AI-driven leasing growth
REIT sector average	~14x	All property types blended
Office REITs	~8x	Depressed by remote-work vacancy

Sources: High Yield Landlord, Nareit.

The gap matters for entry timing: at 2x the sector average multiple, data center REITs have less room for multiple expansion to drive further returns — future gains depend more on earnings growth actually materializing than on re-rating.

The concentration and demand-destruction risk

The single biggest structural risk across this group is customer concentration. At several data center REITs, three hyperscalers — AWS, Microsoft, and Google — account for 60-80% of revenue, giving them outsized leverage in lease renewals and, more importantly, the option to build rather than rent. Microsoft’s aggressive push into self-built capacity in 2023-2024 demonstrated that this is not theoretical: a hyperscaler shifting even a portion of planned leasing to owned infrastructure can remove demand from the wholesale market overnight. Layer on rising power costs (data center operating expenses are climbing faster than electricity supply is being added) and standard REIT interest-rate sensitivity, and the sector’s dividend-paying reputation understates its actual volatility. Track underlying GPU and colocation demand signals in our GPU price tracker and facility catalog to see whether hyperscaler leasing momentum is holding up in the markets that matter to your holdings.

How to choose among them

• Want the highest-quality, most liquid pure-play → Equinix. Best interconnection moat, longest dividend growth streak, but the most expensive multiple in the group.
• Want faster growth at a still-large scale → Digital Realty. Best AI-driven bookings momentum among large caps, more reasonable multiple than Equinix, more wholesale/hyperscaler concentration risk.
• Want higher current yield with diversification away from pure data center risk → American Tower or Iron Mountain. Both offer 3%+ yields and real data center growth (CoreSite, Iron Mountain’s DC segment) without betting the whole position on the sector’s 30x multiple holding.
• Want smaller-cap, higher-yield, APAC-specific exposure → Keppel DC REIT or Digital Core REIT. Higher yields and geographic diversification, but lower liquidity and, in Digital Core REIT’s case, recent evidence that occupancy gains do not guarantee distribution growth.
• Before buying any of them, benchmark the physical market they depend on. REIT earnings ultimately trace back to $/kW colocation pricing and vacancy — compare current rates across markets in our colocation price index, and if you are evaluating the space as an operator rather than an investor, request a quote to see how index pricing compares to what you’d actually pay.

This is market research, not investment advice.