"Legacy" data centres are attracting the attention of short seller Jim Chanos as the face growing competition from the tech giants that to data have been their biggest customers, according to a report by The Financial Times.

Chanos, most famous for predicting the Enron collapse over 20 years ago, is said to be seeking several hundred million dollars a for a new fund that will bet against US real estate investment trusts (REITs) that own big server warehouses.

While the data centre market is currently buoyant on the back of a global expansion in cloud computing, Chanos' thinking is that the world's biggest cloud service providers – Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft Azure – will prefer to construct their own facilities than rent space elsewhere, providing tough competition for the likes of Digital Realty Trust and Equinix.