Amazon Web Services (NASDAQ: AMZN), IBM and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) -- three of the major cloud providers -- are among the U.S.-based companies that have the largest data center footprints. A new research note from Synergy Research revealed that each of these providers have 40 or more data center locations with at least two in each of the four regions -- North America, APAC, EMEA and Latin America. The research firm noted that the remaining providers tend to have their data centers focused primarily in either the U.S. (Apple, Twitter, Salesforce, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo) or China (Tencent, Baidu).
From a regional perspective, Synergy Research's fourth quarter 2015 data shows that the U.S. now accounts for 46 percent of major cloud and internet data center sites. The next most prominent locations are China and Japan, with 7 percent and 6 percent respectively.
The three leading countries are then followed by Australia, Singapore, Germany, UK and Brazil, each of which accounts for 3-5 percent of the total. Based on an analysis Synergy conducted of the data center footprint of 17 of the world's major cloud and internet service providers, the companies now have over 230 major data center sites. Release