7 Data Center Stocks, REITs and ETFs to Buy Today
The world’s economy has gone digital. It’s difficult today to find any industry in a developed nation that hasn’t embraced some form of digital technology like cloud computing, electronic payment systems, high-speed communications, artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain in its operations. Add to this the fact that more than 5.5 billion individuals around the world are connected to the internet and over 17 billion Internet of Things, or IoT, devices — everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs) to televisions, smart home speakers and more — are also connected to the web, and the scale of the digital revolution becomes impossible to deny.
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The projected growth of the digital tech industry is truly impressive. Access to the internet — already covering two-thirds of the world’s population — is estimated to be expanding at more than 2% a year. The number of IoT devices is growing by more than 12% annually. The cloud computing industry is, by some estimates, growing at over 20% a year. As for AI, it’s growing so fast that it’s difficult to even guess at a growth rate. We do know, however, that enterprise adoption of AI is surging, with 78% of businesses reporting using AI in at least one business application.
The amount of data being produced, processed, transmitted and stored in our increasingly digital world is mind-boggling, and it’s only going to increase. The result is a high and growing global demand for digital infrastructure in the form of microchips, computers, servers, data centers, cellular communication towers and dozens of other data center-related industries. That demand will be met by a broad category of digital infrastructure companies called, for the sake of brevity, data center stocks.
Data center stocks include, but are not limited to, real estate investment trusts, or REITs, that own and operate data centers. They also encompass chip makers, hardware firms and software companies, as well as industrial companies that supply components and low-tech equipment to the industry. Public and private electric utilities that provide the vast amounts of power needed to run and cool a modern server farm are also considered data center stocks.
Investors looking to profit from the ongoing data center boom are not limited to individual equity securities; there are several well-run, high-quality exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, that specialize in digital infrastructure. That’s the focus of the following list of seven data center stocks, REITs and ETFs investors should buy now. Like every industry, the data center business will have its ups and downs, and no one can predict the overall, long-term performance of any stock, REIT or ETF. That said, it’s clear that this industry is poised for sustained growth and that these securities are well positioned to take advantage of that growth:
| Equity | Forward Dividend Yield | Market Capitalization | Year-to-date Performance* |
| Trane Technologies PLC (ticker: TT) | 0.9% | $95.3 billion | 15.7% |
| Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL) | 1.7% | $82.3 billion | 5.2% |
| Pacer Benchmark Data & Infrastructure Real Estate ETF (SRVR) | 1.6% | $437.2 million | 8.9% |
| Crown Castle Inc. (CCI) | 4.1% | $44.3 billion | 12.2% |
| Vertiv Holdings Co. (VRT) | 0.1% | $46.7 billion | 7.8% |
| Constellation Energy Corp. (CEG) | 0.5% | $99.5 billion | 42.1% |
| Equinix Inc. (EQIX) | 2.1% | $87.5 billion | -5.3% |
*All data current as of June 24 close.
Trane Technologies PLC (TT)
Trane was founded in La Crosse, Wisconsin, as a small family-owned plumbing and heating company. It didn’t sell its first air conditioning unit until 1931, but it quickly became one of the foremost names in commercial and residential cooling.
Today TT is a global leader in climate control equipment with a special focus on air conditioning and industrial cooling. The company has three regional divisions — the Americas plus Europe, the Middle East and Africa, or EMEA, and the Asia-Pacific region. TT generated $19.8 billion in revenue in its fiscal year 2024. That figure represented a 12% increase over its 2023 revenue of $17.5 billion. Wall Street is looking for revenue of $21.5 billion in fiscal 2025, which would be 8.5% higher than its 2024 number.
Air conditioning is critical to the efficient operation of data centers, and TT is a global leader in the field. It has a specific product line dedicated to the unique demands of data centers, including hyperscale data centers. Its data center products include 145°F-ready air-cooled magnetic bearing chillers — meaning these state-of-the-art units can keep a huge data center cool even if the outdoor temperature reaches 145°F.
TT is a trusted strategic partner with data center hyperscalers Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Meta Platforms Inc. (META) and Alphabet, Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL). The company has a market cap of $95.3 billion and pays a small forward dividend yield of 0.9%.
Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL)
The Stargate Initiative — a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank Group (OTC: SFTBY) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL) — has announced a $100 billion to $500 billion project to build as many as 20 hyperscale data centers in Texas and other Sunbelt states in the U.S. Each facility will span 500,000 square feet, and each will probably house over 400,000 servers. And while the Stargate Initiative is the most ambitious data center project, it’s far from the only one. All this is good news for DELL, the $81 billion hardware and IT infrastructure company founded by Michael Dell back in 1984.
DELL is a major supplier of servers and computers to data centers in the U.S. and around the world. DELL’s data center customers include AWS, the cloud computing division of Amazon, which will be investing $100 billion in data centers over the next 15 years, and Alphabet, which has earmarked $75 billion for data centers in 2025 alone.
DELL offers a turnkey technology solution to its data center clients and can deliver hardware and software on an industrial scale. Data center investors should give this company serious consideration. The stock pays a forward dividend yield of 1.8%.
Pacer Benchmark Data & Infrastructure Real Estate ETF (SRVR)
SRVR is a data center and digital infrastructure ETF with $437 million in net assets. The ETF pays a forward dividend yield of 1.6%. This specialty fund invests in REITs and stocks that are intrinsically tied to the data center industry.
SRVR is a seven-year-old ETF designed to take advantage of digital infrastructure companies like data centers, cellular communication tower companies, cloud computing firms and other essential digital support stocks. This is a highly strategic and fairly aggressive fund that provides global diversification by investing in developed nations around the world. SRVR does not, however, invest in emerging-market nations.
The fund’s portfolio managers select stocks from within the GRP 250 Index, the GRP Pure Infrastructure Index and the U.S. technology sector with an emphasis on data center-related stocks.
Crown Castle Inc. (CCI)
A huge percentage of the data that’s transmitted to and from the world’s data centers is transmitted over the air via cell towers. It stands to reason that cellular antenna tower companies are a critical element of the world’s digital infrastructure and essential to the data center industry.
CCI is a nearly $45 billion U.S. tower REIT that operates more than 40,000 full-sized cell towers and an impressive portfolio of small cell antennas, which are mounted on telephone poles and street lights and are supported by almost 100,000 miles of fiber optic cable.
All major cell phone providers, including T-Mobile US Inc. (TMUS), Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and AT&T Inc. (T), are customers of CCI. The company also rents its network to the U.S. government and many states and municipalities.
CCI routinely generates over $1 billion a quarter in revenue and pays a forward dividend yield of 4.1%.
Vertiv Holdings Co. (VRT)
For the 12 months ending June 24, VRT is up over 30%. That impressive performance was fueled exclusively by sales to data center builders and operators.
VRT is an equipment and services company designed with data centers in mind. It engineers, manufactures, sells, installs and services an incredible variety of machines and equipment that help make data centers work. The company’s products span the entire lifecycle of a data center from design to construction and throughout its serviceable life.
VRT has a market cap of about $47 billion. Its most popular products include stackable server racking systems, high-speed cables and wiring systems, and giant ceiling fans. Most of its products are low-tech, but it does offer high-tech, high-speed communication networks as well.
Providing dividend income is not a primary objective of the company, but it does pay an annual forward dividend of 15 cents a share, which equates to a yield of 0.13%.
Constellation Energy Corp. (CEG)
A few years ago, Wall Street woke to the realization that electric utilities were, in fact, data center stocks. That’s because data centers require a tremendous amount of electricity to power all those tens of thousands of servers, and to run the massive air-conditioning units necessary to keep them functioning efficiently. Suddenly, boring utilities were transformed into some of the hottest growth stocks on the market.
CEG is an electric company that operates in New York, the Mid-Atlantic states and the Midwest region of the U.S. The company uses hydrocarbons like natural gas as well as hydroelectric power stations, nuclear facilities, and wind and solar installations to meet the data center industry’s and its other customers’ ever-growing demand for power.
With a year-to-date performance as of June 24 of 42.1%, CEG has trounced the S&P 500, which has appreciated just 3.6% for the same period.
This utility has a market cap of just over $100 billion and a forward dividend yield of 0.49%.
Equinix Inc. (EQIX)
EQIX is a specialty REIT, and it happens that its specialty is data centers. In fact, with a market cap of $87.5 billion, EQIX is the largest dedicated data center real estate company in the world.
EQIX operates about 260 data centers in 34 countries, having full ownership of about 170 of them. Its owned data center square footage totals over 21 million square feet, and its total square footage, which includes data centers it operates with partners, is over 31 million.
The company’s clients include financial services companies, cloud computing firms, health care companies, online retailers, manufacturing firms and many more. It speaks well of the company that more than 2,000 network service providers, or NSPs, use EQIX data centers.
Wall Street is looking for earnings per share of $14.41 in fiscal 2025 and $16.58 in 2026. If EQIX can achieve those numbers, it would equate to 15% year-over-year EPS growth. The stock has a forward dividend yield of just over 2%.
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7 Data Center Stocks, REITs and ETFs to Buy Today originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 06/25/25: This story was previously published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.