Summary

  • Q3 lease bookings are expected to produce $855 million of annualized GAAP base rent at 100% share; Digital Realty’s share is $627 million.
  • New leases signed in the quarter had a 17-month weighted-average lag before contractual commencement. The quarter-end backlog remained signed but not commenced.
  • The company also reported $152 million of bookings from 0–1 MW leases and interconnection at its share, alongside a separate estimate of near-term backlog cash NOI and remaining completion cost.

Digital Realty has the signature. The rent clock starts later.

The company’s October 29 results put a record on the booking line: $855.275 million of annualized GAAP base rent expected from leases signed in the third quarter, measured at 100% share. Digital Realty’s own share was $626.604 million. Those figures describe a rent run-rate attached to signed leases once they reach their contractual start dates. They are not the quarter’s revenue.

The gap has a number. The weighted-average lag between a Q3 signing and contractual commencement was 17 months. That is a portfolio average, not a date for every lease. At September 30, Digital Realty still counted $2.5 billion of annualized GAAP base rent in signed-but-not-commenced backlog at 100% share, or $1.8 billion at its share.

This is the part of data-centre economics that a headline booking total hides in plain sight. A signed lease gives a developer a customer commitment. The operating result arrives on a different schedule: space must reach its contracted start, the service must be ready, and rent must enter the active portfolio. “Record” describes the first step. The lag and backlog describe the distance to the next one.

The mix was broader than a single row of giant leases. At Digital Realty’s share, $129.628 million came from new leases in the 0–1 MW category and $22.209 million from interconnection. Together, the rounded $152 million was nearly a quarter of the $626.604 million company-share booking total. Leases above 1 MW contributed $474.180 million and 143.6 MW. Asia-Pacific accounted for $283.386 million of company-share bookings; $261.271 million of that region’s total came from leases above 1 MW. The supplement shows both small connections and large capacity commitments in the same quarter, without naming the customers behind each booking.

Renewals belong to another clock. Digital Realty signed renewal leases representing $261 million of annualized cash rental revenue during Q3. Renewal rates rose 11.8% on a cash basis and 17.0% on a GAAP basis. These figures apply to existing leases being renewed; they should not be added to the new-lease bookings as if both were a single class of current cash.

The company’s current results provide the operating backdrop. Q3 revenue was $1.9 billion, 21% above the year-earlier quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $978 million, up 13% year on year. Core FFO excluding net promote was $2.10 per share, below Q2’s $2.13 and above Q3 2025’s $1.89. Revenue is a quarterly result; the $855 million booking figure is annualized rent expected after contractual starts. The two measure different stages and time periods.

The supplement offers a narrower bridge to the next stage. Its FY2026 backlog cash-NOI line estimates $221.924 million of annualized cash NOI from signed leases expected to commence through December 31, including Digital Realty’s share of leases at unconsolidated properties. Separate lines list $270.276 million of backlog-NOI cost to complete and $1.774038 billion of investment associated with FY2026 backlog NOI. The near-term NOI estimate covers leases expected to start by year-end; it is not the whole $2.5 billion backlog, and it is not cash collected during Q3.

The scale of bookings is real. So is the time between a signature and a rent-paying start. The public package gives a 17-month weighted average but no Q3-booking schedule that maps individual start-date bands to recognized rent. A cohort-level commencement and realization table would change the conversion assessment.

Sources