Data Centres

Data Centres

• Capacity measured in GW (82-114 GW) no single number. 
• Market size of $383 billion
• Estimated pricing $217.30 per kilowatt (kW) per month
• Over 11800 data centres around the world
• Some of the largest players include Digital Realty, NTT
• For example, Digital Realty has 2.8 GW
• Demand drivers are - cloud, enterprise transformation (for the last 2 decades). And now AI>
• High demand
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At its simplest, a data center is a physical facility that organisations use to house their critical applications and data. A data center's design is based on a network of computing and storage resources that enable the delivery of shared applications and data. The key components of a data center design include routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems, servers, and application-delivery controllers.

"If you’re reading this, the words on your screen have already travelled from a data centre halfway across the world through thousands of kilometres of fibre optic or undersea cables, in just a fraction of a second. Whether you're streaming a movie, using cloud storage or chatting with AI, your data is being stored, processed and delivered by vast, energy-intensive digital warehouses called data centres."

What defines a modern data center?

Modern data centers are very different than they were just a short time ago. Infrastructure has shifted from traditional on-premises physical servers to virtual networks that support applications and workloads across pools of physical infrastructure and into a multicloud environment.

In this era, data exists and is connected across multiple data centers, the edge, and public and private clouds. The data center must be able to communicate across these multiple sites, both on-premises and in the cloud. Even the public cloud is a collection of data centers. When applications are hosted in the cloud, they are using data center resources from the cloud provider.

Network infrastructure. This connects servers (physical and virtualized), data center services, storage, and external connectivity to end-user locations.

Storage infrastructure. Data is the fuel of the modern data center. Storage systems are used to hold this valuable commodity.

Computing resources. Applications are the engines of a data center. These servers provide the processing, memory, local storage, and network connectivity that drive applications.

Types of Data Centres:

Enterprise data centers - These are built, owned, and operated by companies and are optimised for their end users. Most often they are housed on the corporate campus.

Managed services data centers - These data centers are managed by a third party (or a managed services provider) on behalf of a company. The company leases the equipment and infrastructure instead of buying it.

Colocation data centers - In colocation ("colo") data centers, a company rents space within a data center owned by others and located off company premises. The colocation data center hosts the infrastructure: building, cooling, bandwidth, security, etc., while the company provides and manages the components, including servers, storage, and firewalls.

Cloud data centers -In this off-premises form of data center, data and applications are hosted by a cloud services provider such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), or IBM Cloud or other public cloud provide

Market size of c. $383 billion

Global data center capacity is approximately 114 gigawatts (GW) in 2025, with the United States and China together accounting for around 70% of the total.

Global data center pricing rose 3.3% on a weighted inventory basis year-over-year in Q1 to $217.30 per kilowatt (kW) per month

Some estimates claim there are over 7 million data centers globally

Data centers located next to robust fiber optic and power infrastructure, large population centers and in business-friendly states are most attractive to customers

Data center operators make money by leasing or licensing power and space.

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For example,

Digital Realty: