Forecast to increase by an average of 90 per cent over the next three-year period.
Data centre specialist, Datacentre Pricing’s latest survey of data centre developments in the Asia Pacific region, shows over 1.5 million m2 of third-party space is under development, far higher than in Europe with 850k m2.
The Asia-Pacific Survey covering eleven (12) countries reveals that there are over 1.5 million m2 of Data Centre developments, with the focus of new facilities on Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, and Indonesia – with the five (5) countries alone account for one million m2 of space.
In Europe Data Centre Developments have traditionally been concentrated in the so-called FLAP (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam & Paris) markets. The key growth in the European Data Centre market is focused on four large country markets, which together account for over 560,000 m2 of space including:
- The UK Data Centre market has over 170,000 m2 of space under development – an increase of 19 per cent
- The German Data Centre market has 158,000 m2 of space under development – an increase of 26 per cent
- The Irish Data Centre market has 156,000 m2 of space under development – an increase of 121 per cent
- The Netherlands Data Centre market has 78,000 m2 of space under development – an increase of 16 per cent
Ireland has become the fastest growth market in Europe, in large part due to the arrival of large hyperscale Data Centre facilities from – CyrusOne, Echelon Data Centres, K2 Data Centres & scale. In Europe the four key Data Centre markets are forecast to increase by an average of 45.5 per cent over the next 3-year period.
By contrast, in the Asia-Pacific region, the four fastest growing Data Centre markets are forecast to increase by an average of 90 per cent over the next 3-year period – more than double the European amount with Australia being the leader having 417,000 m2 of space under development – an increase of 97 per cent.
In the Asia-Pacific region forecast growth rates vary. China, the second largest Data Centre market after the USA with over 1.7 million m2 of space available at the beginning of 2021, is forecast to see growth of 239,000 m2 with growth in the Greater Beijing and Yangtze River (Shanghai area) regions. Due to the large size of the Chinese market, it is the equivalent of 14 per cent growth.
Singapore, the biggest Data Centre market in southeast Asia with 417,000 m2 of space, is forecast to have 92,000 m2 of space under development over the next 3-year period, equivalent to 22 per cent growth. The relative slowdown is due to the Data Centre expansion moratorium imposed by the Singaporean Government and provides an opportunity for other markets notably Indonesia & Malaysia in close geographical proximity to Singapore with lower cost Data Centre space to take share.
Finally, DCP finds that the key Data Centre developments in the Asia-Pacific and European regions are part of a wider trend taking place in all markets:
- The emergence of large campus Hyperscale Data Centre facilities in most markets:in all markets new Data Centres are being constructed for Hyperscale & Cloud requirements, with large campus facilities – and with power of up to 150 MW such as Next DC in Melbourne.
- The availability of new sources of funding from private equity & sovereign wealth funds is driving Data Centre investment: the new sources of funding from private equity funds has allowed more speculative projects to be initiated by PDG, Digital Edge, Mapletree Investment Trust (MIT) and Lendlease all are backed by private equity & sovereign wealth funds.
- Investments are taking place in new or under-utilised Data Centre markets:with Indonesia & Malaysia seeking to capitalise on the Singaporean Government moratorium on new Data Centre licencing by building facilities near to Singapore. For example, GDS is building a facility at Johor (Malaysia) and Data Centre First is building a facility at Batam island (Indonesia) close to Singapore. ST Telemedia is also building a campus of up to 60,000 m2 of space near Bangkok (Thailand).
- Similarly, European markets are seeing huge new Data Centre investments:The clearest example of new investment is Portugal which has attracted funding from private equity groups Davidson Kempner Capital Management & Pioneer Point Partners to build a huge Data Centre campus at the city of Sines south of Lisbon, with up to 450 MW of power when fully built out – potentially up to 5 times the size of the existing Portuguese Data Centre market.
