Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney are the top data centre markets in the Asia Pacific region, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
Ranked outside the overall top 10 markets last year, Hong Kong made a big jump in 2022, according to the report. The Cushman & Wakefield study also pointed put that Abu Dhabi, Hyderabad, Bangkok and Auckland were the markets to watch in 2022. Interestingly, the remaining locations in the top 10 list all featured locations in the US.
With COVID-19 accelerating the changes that began in 2020, in many ways, became permanent last year. Both enterprises and government agencies alike moved to the cloud or are in the process of determining their hybrid IT strategy. Major cloud services continue to battle for market share in large and small markets alike, with an ever-growing number of markets becoming hubs, Kevin Imboden, Sr. Research Manager, Data Center Insights, Global Research, Cushman & Wakefield said.
Fiber Connectivity
When it comes to fiber connectivity, density and quality are the primary drivers for locating a data centre. More networks are always better, with the diversity of fiber leading to lower latency and higher performance. Bandwidth is an increasing discussion point close to the user considering the move over the past 2 years to a remore working environment. Results of the Speedtest Global Index analysis show that Singapore is the fastest performer globally, followed by Hong Kong, with plenty of undersea cables linking teh city to the region.
Cloud Availability
The move towards the cloud ramped up in 2020 and has sonce rapidly accelerated. In nearly every market around the world, hyperscale cloud services represent 70-80 per cent of all leasing in any given quarter as the all-out battle for marketshare continues. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud continue to be the 3 largest players.
As more entities move more of their workloads to the public cloud for scalability and ease of access, a variety of markets will benefit as the hyperscalers work to bring clients online. Of the 55 markets profiled in the report, almost half of them offer all 3 major cloud services, with considerable further expansion planned and land already acquired in several locations. Jakarta grabbed the limelight in 2021, moving from one to all three and in turn, launching a large amount of construction.
Further growth is expected across Southeast Asia, the report said. The total market for hyperscale cloud revenue globally was $124.7 billion, according to the report.
Sustainability
The recent developments regarding lack of progress on carbon emission reduction has put continued pressure on the need to drive efficiencies from all industries and data cemtres have particularly come under the spotlight. Data centres have many options which include immersion cooling, AI to better manage data centre workloads and sourcing renewable materials to be used in construction. They also have the effect of lower operating costs over the life of the asset.
The largest hyperscale tenants have all committed to reducing their carbon footprint in facets of operations, with data centres the largest source of emissions. Many are aiming to be net-zero by 2030.
