This year is on track to set the record for data center mergers and acquisitions, according to a report from Synergy Research Group.

The report found that in the first half of the year, 52 data center-oriented merger and acquisition deals closed, which is up 18% from the first half of 2018. And the second half of 2019 appears to be staged for a fifth year of continuous growth. Synergy reports that since July, eight merger and acquisitions have closed, and 14 more are pending.

"Analysis of data center M&A activity helps to affirm some clear trends in the industry, not least of which is that enterprises increasingly do not want to own or operate their own data centers,” said John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy Research Group, in a statement.

As more enterprises migrate to the cloud or colocation facilities, more and more data centers are being put up for sale.

"This, in turn, is driving change in the colocation market, with industry giants on a never-ending quest to grow their global footprint and a constant ebb and flow of ownership among small local players," said Dinsdale.

Synergy reports that since 2015 it has tracked more than 300 data center mergers and acquisitions with an aggregated value well in excess of $65 billion. Of these, Synergy notes that public companies accounted for 57% of the value while private buyers accounted for just over half the volume.

However, not everything is as it seems, with Synergy noting that deal value has been skewed by the relatively small number of multi-billion dollar acquisitions — just 11 from 2017 to 2018 and none in the first half of 2019.

In fact, just three massive acquisitions since 2015 — Digital Reality's purchase of DuPont Fabros and Equinix's acquisitions of Telecity and Verizon's data centers — account for 36% of the total value during the period from 2015 to 2019.

While Synergy reported fewer big acquisitions and more small data center sales, Dinsdale hesitated to call it a trend.

Dinsdale said continued growth in the second half of 2019 is probable, but added that forecasting M&A is notoriously difficult.

Looking forward to the next five years, Dinsdale expressed the confidence that data center M&As will become more common as enterprises increasingly turn to the public cloud and consolidation and restructuring within the data center market continues.