The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) data centre stock Nextdc Ltd (ASX: NXT) has suffered an unwelcome fall in the last few months.
As the chart below shows, it's down 20% since 22 January and 28% since 11 October. This may be opening up an opportunity, though.
There aren't many ASX 200 shares that have fallen as much as that in the last six months. The decline may seem surprising considering the tailwinds the business is exposed to.
A recent industry report has outlined the growth that data centres could see, which highlights the potential opportunity with Nextdc shares.
Let's look at how the ASX 200 data centre stock could benefit in the coming years.
Strong growth outlook
According to the Australian Financial Review, which reported on a JLL report discussing economic drivers for commercial real estate, the demand for new data centres will double by 2030, with an extra 175 new facilities thanks to artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Australians are becoming increasingly connected – the number of devices in each household connected to the internet is expected to double by 2030.
The JLL report suggested that Australia's data centre deployable capacity will more than double from 1350MW in 2024 to 3100MW by 2030. This is expected to need a required investment of $26 billion.
The AFR reported that services linked to AI will become a larger contributor to the economy, including jobs such as data scientists, natural language specialists, and software developers.
Nextdc isn't the only Australian business that's investing in creating data centres. Others include Goodman Group (ASX: GMG) and Airtrunk.
The ASX 200 data centre stock is capitalising
The business recently reported its FY25 first-half result for the six months to 31 December 2024.
Net revenue grew 13% to A$167.8 million, and underlying operating profit (EBITDA) rose 3% to A$3.4 million.
During the HY25 period, contracted utilisation increased from 27MW (18%) to 176MW. It also said its forward order book of 83MW is projected to ramp into billing across FY25 to FY29, which is "underpinning future growth in revenues and earnings".
The business is working on data centres and expansions in a number of locations, including Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Perth, Sunshine Coast, Geelong, Kuala Lumpur, and Auckland.
Investors can now buy exposure to this ASX 200 data centre stock at a much cheaper valuation, so it could be the right time to do it for interested Aussies.
