Private equity drove the great majority of data center mergers and acquisitions in a massive year for such transactions. 

The overall value of the 187 data center-related M&A transactions tracked by Synergy Research in 2022 was $48 billion, which was slightly less than the record of $49 billion set in 2021. 

In 2020, private equity constituted 55% of the value of finalized agreements, rising to 66% in 2021, and surging to 91% in 2022. Since 2018, private equity capital has increased by around 50 percent annually, reaching $44 billion by 2022.  In addition, the average transaction size  since 2018 has increased from $80 million to $235 million, nearly tripling in size. 

The $15 billion acquisition of CyrusOne by KKR and Global Investment Partners led 2022, followed by DigitalBridge's $11 billion acquisition of Switch. The two transactions were the largest in the history of data center M&A. Ten of the twelve largest acquisitions of 2022 were spearheaded by private equity, with the exceptions of Equinix's purchase of Entel's data centers and Digital Realty's acquisition of a controlling share in Teraco. 

Only six of the twenty major colocation players in the United States are currently publicly listed, as so many businesses have gone private.