New Jersey is quietly becoming a top-five market for data centers in the United States, according to new JLL research.
Sandwiched between the major metro hubs of New York City and Philadelphia, New Jersey’s data center footprint is growing because of record demand from financial services, AI deployments, and new state legislation proposed for special incentivized utility rate for 100+ MW data-center developments. Tax incentives and new special utility rates are driving strong interest in 100+ MW AI data center developments.
JLL said the state is “ideal for edge and AI inference deployments and ideally positioned to handle financial services inference applications.” The downside is the state has “very limited 2+ MW of contiguous space options in the next 12 months, as new capacity doesn’t arrive until the second half of 2026.”
The bill for special incentivized utility rate, proposed by Democratic Party Assemblymen Dave Bailey and Joe Danielsen, would require electric public utilities in the state to develop and apply special rules for certain data centers to protect non-data center customers from increased costs. The rules would apply to large load facilities that have or are projected to have a maximum monthly demand of at least 100MW.
Besides ensuring that the costs of increased electricity demand don’t fall on other rate payers, the legislation is intended to incentivize “data centers to develop and utilize methods to increase energy efficiency, including through the use of technologies that capture and utilize the heat produced by the large load data center.”
Livingston-based AI cloud-computing company CoreWeave has begun a large campus development and data-center construction at the former Merck & Co. campus in Kenilworth.
The company’s announced acquisition of Core Scientific was the most notable M&A deal in the first half of 2025. The all-stock transaction has an implied total equity value of around $9 billion. CoreWeave launched its initial public offering on March 28 priced at $40 per share. As of Aug. 22, the stock was trading at $94.12 per share, a gain of 141.5%.
Amazon Web Services is expanding with a new availability zone in New Jersey, its seventh second-generation availability zone in the state. This local zone brings the company’s services closer to end-users in the region, helping reduce latency for applications like real-time gaming, financial transactions, and media production.
In March, Dutch AI infrastructure company Nebius announced plans for a major upgrade to its U.S.-based cloud computing capacity with the planned construction of a new data center in Vineland with capacity of up to 300 MW.
QTS Data Centers, with facilities in East Windsor, Jersey City, and Piscataway, is looking to develop campuses, as are data-center companies Equinix (data centers in Newark, Bergen, Secaucus, and Carteret) and CoreSite (Secaucus).
JLL added that multiple 100+ MW locations are starting to surface in the state.
The real estate data provider said capacity upgrade requests from the utility PSEG have hit record inquiry levels. PSEG’s lead times are ranging between three and seven years, with a large upgrade pipeline.
JLL said North America could see $1 trillion of data center development between 2025 and 2030.
