Mumbai/Bengaluru, Oct. 3 -- Hyperscalers and large companies are increasingly booking data centre capacity before facilities are ready, with pre-leased capacity more than doubling in a year as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure outpaces new supply. Pre-leased data centre capacity rose to around 1.2 gigawatts (GW) as of June 2026, from around 550 megawatts (MW) a year earlier, according to data published in a 23 August report by real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield. The capacity refers to the amount of computing infrastructure a data centre can support, measured by the power available to run IT equipment. Pre-leasing, or early booking of under-construction data centres, is an established practice worldwid...