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Global investment in data centre infrastructure is expected to surge past US$26 billion by 2025, driven by rampant data creation and pent-up demand.
This is according to new analysis by business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, which suggests that investments from technology and industrial firms in next-generation enterprise, cloud, and colocation data centres will accelerate the growth of the global data centre infrastructure solutions (DCIS) market.
Despite many data centre companies reducing construction activities during COVID-19, Frost & Sullivan anticipates that the industry will witness significant growth in 2021 due to pent-up demand.
Indeed, total investment in DCIS is expected to reach US$26.15 billion by 2025, up from US$16.73 billion in 2019, equating to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.7 per cent.
The analyst firm predicts that technology and telecommunication firms from the United States and China particularly will continue their “robust” expenditure during the next decade to dominate the data centre space.
It is thought that increased data centre investments are being driven by continual high volumes of data creation worldwide, boosting the need for power and cooling solutions that are environmentally friendly, efficient and reduce the overall cost of ownership.
"Data creation is also expected to occur at a faster pace, as 5G will enable activities such as augmented and virtual reality, smart sensor technology, and advanced mobile video and gaming, all of which drive data traffic,” Frost & Sullivan energy and environment research analyst Manoj Shankar said.
“The presence of microdata centres in the form of multi-access edge computing (MEC) sites within the 5G networks will bring data processing and storage close to the customer end.
"However, these MEC sites will have increased power requirements, which lead to the development of innovative power and cooling solutions that cater to the needs of 5G networks, thereby driving micro and modular infrastructure development,” he added.
From Shankar’s perspective, the demand for more efficient infrastructure solutions to process data, along with cooling and rack-based products, is likely to lead the DCIS market over the coming years.
Uninterrupted power supply (UPS) and generators, meanwhile, are also expected to feature prominently as a data centre backup power source as companies look to reduce downtime by employing multiple backup power solutions.
