-- Equinix (EQIX) is likely to benefit from sustained demand for colocation data center capacity, driven by an inflection in enterprise compute workloads toward AI inference, Morgan Stanley said in a Monday research report.
Morgan Stanley said its capex yield framework indicates potential revenue growth for data center real estate investment trusts as capacity expands.
The brokerage raised its 2026 and 2027 revenue growth estimates for Equinix by about 50 basis points and 130 basis points, respectively.
The company's stabilized yield is likely to improve as more capacity becomes available for leasing at attractive rates, while demand for AI inference could receive further support from the emergence of new use cases, according to the note.
Morgan Stanley said factors such as data generation from digitization at scale, the transition to hybrid IT architectures, cloud adoption, and cybersecurity are driving growth for data center REITs.
The brokerage reiterated its overweight rating on Equinix and raised its price target to $1,250 per share from $1,075.
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