Data Centre Investment Beats The Downturn: Report

Investment in data centre infrastructure will exceed $35 billion (£22bn) during 2012, a new report by DatacenterDynamics Research has found – with around a tenth of that money to be invested in the UK.

The DatacenterDynamics Industry Census 2011, based on responses from 5,400 data centre owners and operators from around the world, found that the global data centre industry is set grow 16 percent over the next 12 months, helping the sector to beat the global downturn.

Beating the downturn

The Western United States is to receive the largest investment of $3.5 billion (£2.5bn), closely followed by the UK with $3.35 billion (£2.1bn) and China with $3.1 billion (£1.9bn). However, in terms of percentage growth in data centre investment, South East Asia will far outstrip other ranked countries, at 118 percent.

Investment is being driven by rapid growth in the number of Internet users, as well as the increasing popularity of smartphones, the report found.

“The world is becoming more IT dependent. Even in developed markets, the expansion of IT and internet use in business, government and socially has created a perfect storm for more servers and storage, and more data centers to power, cool and house them,” said DatacenterDynamics Research director, Nick Parfitt.

“The perception is without question that data centres are the best way of ensuring the availability and reliability of IT services and the machines to deliver them,” he added.

Investment will be divided between the construction of new data centres, the extension and upgrade of existing facilities, and the increased use of outsourced data centre services, the report found.

London leads the way

The news backs up the findings of a recent report by Tariff Consultancy Ltd., which found that raised floor space will increase by 28 percent on average over the next five years. Meanwhile, data centre revenue across Europe will have grown 53 percent by the end of 2016.

Tariff also named London as the largest single data centre market in Europe last year, pointing to the city’s ‘interconnected ecosystem’ as one of the main drivers, despite the high cost of real estate within the M25.

The high prices have certainly not deterred new data centre builds within London, such as TelecityGroup, Interxion and Telehouse Europe which have all come on stream over the last year. These facilities help to meet customer demand but have also resulted in some softening of prices, claimed Tariff.