Hong Kong’s well-established financial and logistics industries are critical components that support the surrounding economy on both a city-wide and regional scale. Its excellent ICT networks position Hong Kong at a crucial juncture between Asia Pacific and the rest of the world, and it is a proven early adopter of technologies like 5G and GBPS Broadband. 

But underpinning these fast-moving businesses and systems are Hong Kong’s datacenters, a robust backbone to Hong Kong’s expansive digital infrastructure.  The digital transformation opportunities enabled by these datacenters is forecasted to add US$9 billion to Hong Kong’s GDP in the next three years–a year on year increase of 0.5 percent.

It’s important to look at the future of the Hong Kong market with a special focus on the heart of its data ecosystem: the data centers themselves. Our upcoming webinar “Hong Kong Datacenters: Market Insights 2021” will provide an unrivalled look into this dynamic market. 

Alex Perkins, Chief Development Officer for Status Data Centers and one of the featured panelists for the show, states:

“Hong Kong is one of the key established data centre markets in Asia Pacific, thriving on the excellent telecommunications networks linking Asia Pacific with the globe.  Being at the forefront of mobile networks connectivity with 5G mobile networks and Gbps broadband as a standard, HK has always been an early adopter of new technologies.”

Upon further reflection of this market,  Perkins went on to highlight the COVID-19 pandemic as a key accelerating factor. Hong Kong companies increased their rate of adoption of cloud computing platforms by 40 percent. In this same time frame, the Media and Entertainment data share has skyrocketed, with social media usage and gaming each up by around 35 percent and video streaming up by 50 percent.

This data boom is most acutely felt in the retail sphere, with e-commerce replacing brick-and-mortar spaces, and Hong Kongers quickly catching up to their mainland counterparts in China when it comes to digital wallet adoption.

How does this impact the Datacenter market?

These compounding factors have dramatically driven up demand for datacenters all over the world. In Hong Kong in particular, internet usage has increased 60 percent in the past twelve months. As Perkins explains:

“This has led to limited available capacity in the existing market, especially for larger demand of 2-5MW where options are limited, although major new projects coming to the market from 2021 should alleviate some of those issues.”

Regarding the scope and scale of these “major new projects”, Perkins admits that “Whether this satiates the need for the hyperscale players remains to be seen”, although he notes that “larger sites in TKO and Shatin may do that, however the price point will be key to attracting the big players for the longer term.”

Ultimately, Perkins notes, “The market is looking up.”

Learn More

W.Media’s “Hong Kong Datacenters: Market Insights 2021” series will focus on HK’s datacenter market: its business prospects, technological breakthroughs, and future trends. Registration is free. Our speakers will be discussing the commercial real estate outlook, cloud adoption in SME’s, and strengthening the market’s resilience.

Join us on Wednesday, 3rd February from 10.00am – 11.30 am for 90 minutes of invigorating conversation with Alex Perkins as well as other esteemed experts.