Columbus , Ohio , wants to be the midwestern US ’ next cloud hub , converting hundreds of acres of farmland into the foundations of a new ‘ data centre alley ’.

How ’ s that going ?

In the short term ? Pretty well . Google recently announced an extra $ 1bn investment to expand its campus in the neighbouring town of New Albany , and bought another 600 + acres in Columbus and Lancaster . Both sites used to be farms .

What about the long term ?

Ehh … maybe not so great . You see , much like sporting arenas or a new Amazon HQ , data centres are often courted by multiple city or state governments . These metros offer up huge tax breaks in the realm of tens of millions of dollars per hyperscale site in Ohio , which would be fine if data centres actually created any jobs .

They don ’ t ?

Nope . Most hyperscale campuses just need one technician for every 40,000 racks . This means the Columbus city council is foregoing almost $ 47mn to create just 20 long-term jobs .

That ’ s insane .

I know , right ? Personally , I ’ d stick to the dairy business .

� NIGERIA The country ’ s data centre market is booming along with its skyrocketing population . The Nigerian data centre industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17 % between 2021 and 2026 , far outperforming the global average ..

� NVIDIA The chip maker ' s stock has surged recently as a string of reports found that the data centre industry ’ s demand for semiconductors isn ’ t going anywhere but up .

� WATER CONSUMPTION In the face of mounting criticism across multiple markets , the data centre industry is taking steps to drastically cut water consumption , from Facebook ’ s three water restoration projects in Mesa , Arizona , to Aligned energy securing $ 12.5bn in funding to build fully waterless facilities .

� INTEL While strong market demand could see this trend reverse itself in the coming year , Intel ’ s data centre business is nevertheless on the rocks due to stiffening competition from Arm and NVIDIA , as well as several hyperscalers exploring the process of making their own chips .

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