Created to meet increased demand for cloud services and the ever growing need for capacity – which , with growing adoption of power and space-hungry 5G , AI and IoT means more reliable and efficient capacity is required – these outsourced massive business-critical facilities are designed to efficiently support robust , scalable applications . The majority of these facilities are owned and operated by technology giants , including the likes of Amazon , Microsoft , Meta , Google , IBM and Apple . There are just 700 of these facilities globally , but this is double both in number of facilities and capacity that there was five years ago .

Growing demand for hyperscale data centres “ The escalating demand for hyperscale data centres arises from the rapid and ongoing digitalisation of business and society , resulting in a need for more and more computing and storage ,” Dan Pointon , Group Chief Technology Officer of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres ( STT GDC ) explains . As one of the world ’ s fastest-growing data centre providers , since 2014 STT GDC has worked to power a sustainable digital future , offering colocation that enables businesses to thrive within its scaled interconnected infrastructure .

“ Cloud computing , big data analytics and IoT applications have all been instrumental in supporting digitalisation ,” he adds . “ And data centres have been at the core of enabling the efficient management of data , supporting global connectivity and offering scalability .”

The recent rise in generative AI applications has emerged as a new demand driver for a different type of computing , placing fresh demands on data centres to

44 October 2023