# Rankings — methodology

2026-09-12 — containment-aware aggregation. Every aggregate reads FACILITY_VIEW (apps/worker/src/rankings.ts): a campus row whose buildings publish MW contributes nothing itself, a building covered by its campus figure counts as covered, a campus with buildings is not an extra facility. Project figures are summed only from site-scoped claims (projectPlannedMw). Hidden / merged projects are excluded everywhere. New keys: metros_ai, metros_cloud_regions, metros_projects, operators_ai, operators_projects, operators_project_mw, countries_project_mw, countries_projects, countries_ixps.

Rankings are recomputed by computeRankings() (apps/worker/src/rankings.ts) and served with the methodology text below (rankings.methodology, also returned in the API meta). They are only as good as the coverage of the index; every row therefore exposes coverage, the share of the entity's facilities that carry any MW figure.

# Definitions shared by all rankings

Facility — a live record in facilities (merged_into IS NULL), any status. Duplicates folded by reconciliation are excluded.
Operational — status operational, partially_operational or expansion.
Under construction — status under_construction.
Planned — status rumored, proposed, announced, permitting, approved or delayed.
Known MW — Σ over operational facilities of IT capacity, or total power when the operator publishes only that. Figures marked as estimates count only when no measured figure exists for the facility, and the facility is flagged mw_is_estimate. We never impute MW to facilities without a published or filed figure.
Pipeline MW — Σ over facilities not yet operational of planned power (or IT/total power when no planned figure is published), split into planned MW (planning statuses) and construction MW (under construction).
Coverage — facilities with any MW figure ÷ facilities.
Coverage gate — MW-based and per-capita rankings exclude entities with fewer than 5 facilities or coverage below 35 % (minCoverage), so that thin data does not produce spurious leaders. Count-based rankings have no gate.
Delta — rank change versus the previous snapshot of the same ranking (positive = moved up).

Population and GDP come from the latest World Bank vintage stored on the country (countries.population, countries.gdp_usd, stats_year); the vintage is shown on country pages.

# Countries

Key	Label	Unit	Method
`countries_facilities`	Facility count	facilities	Number of facilities located in the country. Secondary: known MW.
`countries_known_mw`	Known operational MW	MW	Known MW (see above). Gate applies. Secondary: operational facilities.
`countries_planned_mw`	Planned MW	MW	Pipeline MW over planning statuses. Gate applies.
`countries_construction_mw`	MW under construction	MW	Pipeline MW over facilities under construction. Gate applies.
`countries_hyperscale`	Hyperscale facilities	facilities	Facilities flagged hyperscale (self-described, or operated by AWS, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Apple, IBM or Huawei Cloud).
`countries_ai`	AI facilities	facilities	Facilities flagged as AI / accelerated-computing sites by their operator or a primary source.
`countries_cloud_regions`	Cloud regions	regions	Public cloud regions (announced or operational; retired excluded) across indexed providers.
`countries_facilities_per_million`	Facilities per million residents	per million	facilities ÷ (population / 1 000 000). Requires ≥ 5 facilities and a population figure.
`countries_mw_per_capita`	Known MW per capita	kW per 1 000 residents	known MW × 1 000 000 ÷ population (equivalently kW per 1 000 residents). Gate applies.
`countries_mw_per_gdp`	Known MW per $bn GDP	MW per $bn	known MW ÷ (GDP in current US$ / 10⁹). Gate applies.
`countries_growth`	Facilities opened in the last 3 years	facilities	Facilities whose (possibly partial) opening date is in the current year − 3 or later. Facilities with no opening date are not counted, so this understates growth where operators do not publish dates.

# Metros

Facilities are assigned to a metro when they lie within the metro's radius (40–80 km) of its reference point, or — without coordinates — when their city matches one of the metro's listed sub-markets. Metros never span borders.

Key	Label	Unit	Method
`metros_facilities`	Facility count	facilities	Facilities assigned to the metro.
`metros_known_mw`	Known operational MW	MW	Known MW. Gate applies.
`metros_pipeline_mw`	Pipeline MW	MW	Planned MW + construction MW. Gate applies.
`metros_operators`	Operator count	operators	Distinct operators with ≥ 1 facility in the metro.

# Operators

"Operated by" means the facility's operator_id; owners and tenants are not counted. Subsidiaries listed in the curated alias table are folded into the parent brand (e.g. Interxion → Digital Realty, RagingWire → NTT Global Data Centers, zColo → DataBank).

Key	Label	Unit	Method
`operators_facilities`	Facility count	facilities	Facilities operated. Secondary: countries.
`operators_countries`	Country footprint	countries	Distinct countries with ≥ 1 operated facility.
`operators_metros`	Metro footprint	metros	Distinct metros with ≥ 1 operated facility (facilities outside any defined metro are not counted).
`operators_known_mw`	Known operational MW	MW	Known MW. Gate applies.
`operators_pipeline_mw`	Pipeline MW	MW	Planned MW + construction MW. Gate applies.

# Summary statistics and daily metrics

refreshStats() writes the same aggregates (counts, MW sums, status breakdown, coverage) into countries.stats, metros.stats and operators.stats for fast summaries. computeDailyMetrics() snapshots facilities_total, operational, under_construction, planned, known_mw, construction_mw, planned_mw, mw_coverage, events_24h (plus sources, documents, operators, cloud_regions, projects, … globally) into daily_metrics — one row per day, metric and dimension (global, country:<iso2>, operator:<id> for the top 100 operators, metro:<id>) — and mirrors them to ClickHouse entity_daily for growth charts.

# Known limitations

Known MW mixes IT capacity and total power when operators publish only one of them; the facility page shows which one is available.
Coverage varies strongly by country: primary-source disclosure is much higher in North America and Europe than elsewhere, so cross-region comparisons of MW rankings should be read with the coverage column.
Per-capita and per-GDP rankings depend on the World Bank vintage stored on the country.