Knight Frank has released key findings from its Data Centre Report which indicates that the data centre market has experienced strong momentum throughout the year. The report, published in partnership with DC Byte, shows EMEA markets have seen take-up rise four per cent, to 120MW with a ten per cent increase in new supply overall, totalling more than 180MW. In APAC, total supply increased by just under 200MW, reflecting a similar pace to 2020 take up, recorded at just over 800MW, making total supply 5800MW across the region.
The report has closely tracked the significant pandemic-driven data usage shift in 2020, which in turn magnified the traditional “buy” cycle and led to record developments. The data shows that whilst some markets have kept up with this pace, others have reported little supply growth.
In EMEA, the core (FLAPD) markets of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Paris and Dublin continued their momentum, yet the most significant trend is towards expansion outside of these markets, with Africa poised to become a significant hyper scale region, highlighted by the level of supply coming online in South Africa and Kenya. Development in EMEA’s leading markets has been most notable in Dublin with 108MW added, London and Moscow both saw 40MW added, whilst Zurich added 33MW.
“Our data suggests that the accelerating take-up rates will only continue to rise, quickly absorbing the 2020 supply,” Ed Galvin, founder and CEO at DC Byte, said. “This will prompt continued commitments to bring new data centre facilities online in 2022 and beyond, further reflected by new developments that have already been committed to. The sector is extremely fast-moving and the level of competition to source new sites is increasing exponentially. We have never seen such rising demand for comprehensive intelligence in this space.”
“The increase in data centre facilities is becoming more widely distributed, as providers expand into new territories to add political and geographic diversity as well as meeting new data protection legislation requirements,” Stephen Beard, partner and co-head of global data centres at Knight Frank, said. “Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Zurich, and Warsaw, for example, have been recent targets for cloud availability zones. Meanwhile, there is industry consolidation to also consider. New investors looking to maximise facility value to serve the 5G data economy, will likely target sites for upgrades rather than decommissioning.”
