None of them does, for most of their locations. Owning real estate simply isn‘t their main business purpose and has many downsides, especially in matters of sc

None of them does, for most of their locations. Owning real estate simply isn‘t their main business purpose and has many downsides, especially in matters of scalability. The main pro reason for owning them is cost. Owning the buildings makes you less flexible but saves you money in the long-term. One more point in favor of leasing is: the relevant „neighbors“ are just next door. If you own the real estate, it‘s probably in the middle of nowhere, network-wise, and you end up spending lots on laying fibre. Whereas with leased space, other providers are likely on the same campus and all you need is a few 100 meter or one km of fibre to reach the next building or even just the next room. If you are small enough, these savings on connectivity can even end up making it cheaper to lease. Might be a surprise to many, but it‘s primarily the budget providers (Hetzner and OVH) that own their own buildings. Most others just have long-term leases with whoever owns the real estate (usually Equinix or Interxion/Digital Realities, as they more or less own most big DCs around the globe). Also, I guess many miss-understand what „not own the DC“ really means. These services aren‘t the kind of retail-style colocation offers. Those providers rent entire rooms or even buildings there, run their own infrastructure in them and frequently have their own staff and offices on site too. These lease agreements behave more like a usual office or warehouse lease, not what some here might think.