Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE:DLR) stock traded higher Friday after BTIG raised its price forecast on the data center real estate investment trust, citing accelerating demand for AI infrastructure and a growing development pipeline.
BTIG Sees Data Center Demand Accelerating
BTIG analyst Thomas Catherwood maintained a Buy rating on Digital Realty and raised the price forecast to $220 from $215. The firm said evidence from hyperscaler spending, cloud growth, utility backlogs and NVIDIA Corp. results points to stronger data center demand.
Hyperscaler capital spending remains a major tailwind. Hyperscaler capital spending remains a major tailwind. Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. spent about $165 billion combined in the second quarter, up roughly 89% from a year earlier. BTIG expects elevated spending to support demand for third-party data center capacity.
Cloud growth is also strengthening the case. BTIG said AI workloads are moving from experimentation into production, driving higher cloud consumption and increasing demand for data center capacity.
