Market Trends of London Data Center Industry
Mega Size Data Center are Expected to Hold Significant Share
- Mega or hyperscale data centers are designed to handle large amounts of data and support various applications. These applications include IT and telecom services, government services, healthcare, e-commerce, media and entertainment, and more. The scalability of mega data centers allows businesses and organizations to quickly and efficiently add capacity to meet their growing needs. These data centers also play an important role in cloud computing, enabling businesses to store and access their data anywhere easily. Overall, mega data centers are a critical component in the digital infrastructure that supports the modern economy, providing the capacity and reliability that businesses and consumers need to stay connected and productive.
- Mega data centers are large-scale industrial operations that use massive amounts of electricity to house computer systems. As these data centers have grown in size and number, industry think tanks have proposed standards for their size and density. The Telecommunications Industry Association's Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers specifies the minimum requirements for telecommunications infrastructure of data centers and computer rooms, including single-tenant enterprise data centers and multi-tenant Internet hosting data centers. In addition, the Uptime Institute offers a data center Tier Classification Standard, which defines four tiers ranging from basic capacity to fault-tolerant and includes requirements for redundancy, power, and cooling.
- One example of a mega data center in London is the Colt London City Data Center located at 1-2 Princes Court, Wapping Lane, London E1W 2DA, United Kingdom. However, there may be other examples of mega data centers in London that are not publicly disclosed, as many large companies choose to keep the location and details of their data centers confidential for security reasons. It is also worth noting that the definition of a "mega" data center can vary, and there are no strict guidelines on what qualifies as such, but generally, a data center is considered to be "mega" if it exceeds 100,000 square feet in size and has a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of less than 1.2
- Several international and regional standards and regulations pertaining to data centers in Europe. The European Commission's proposed Energy Efficiency Directive in its Fit for 55 legislative package includes sustainability reporting requirements for data centers.
- In addition, the Telecommunications Industry Association's Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers specifies the minimum requirements for telecommunications infrastructure of data centers and computer rooms, including single-tenant enterprise data centers and multi-tenant Internet hosting data centers. There are also standards set by the Uptime Institute and EN-50600 and ISO-22237 Information Technology - Data center facilities and infrastructures, which define different paths and tiers of solutions for data center design and operations.
- According to Ofcom, the United Kingdom (UK) had By the conclusion of the last quarter in 2023, the United Kingdom had 4.82 million subscribers of mobile broadband. Between the beginning of 2012 and the end of 2023, the number of mobile broadband users in the UK fluctuated from 4.41 million to 5.56 million in 2015.
- In terms of mobile broadband applications, mega data centers can play a key role in enabling seamless connectivity for users on the move. Data centers can act as centralized hubs for storing and processing data, allowing for efficient and fast data transfer between different devices and networks.
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Retail Colocation Center is Expected to Hold Significant Share
- Retail colocation is where the customer takes the space for lease within the data center, such as rack space within the caged-off area. Owing to various advantages, such as economics and ease of maintenance, smaller enterprises generally prefer retail colocation. Owning a data center is not a viable option due to the cost of land leasing. Also, maintenance of a colocation center is often outside budget constraints.
- The retail colocation market is likely driven by the high demand for colocation services from developing countries. Compared to wholesale colocation services, retail colocation services are highly suitable for enterprises requiring lesser computing power at one site or across multiple locations to benefit local and global customers. The retail colocation market is anticipated to grow significantly during the forecast period. About 100 kW of energy is typically needed to power retail data centers, while wholesale customers usually need more than 100 kW, owing to their business scale. Many facilities, such as security provision, customer support, cooling facilities, etc., are provided by colocation suppliers.
- Typically, retail customers have many partners to maintain connectivity. Therefore, a diverse set of carriers with good speeds are necessary. Additionally, as retail data center providers work with more clients than wholesale providers, their facilities usually offer a multitude of networks and services. Retail providers offer various services, such as smart hands and remote hands, for technical assistance, managed services, and network monitoring. Therefore, resolving issues can be as simple as raising a service ticket. Such services help exploit various other benefits, such as locating data centers away from disaster-prone areas that can be remotely operated. Due to this remote hand's technology, tax benefits in different states can be used to avail certain tax benefits.
- Many new technologies, including 100% green data centers, have been deployed in retail colocation. Aruba SPA has built a 100% green data center facility. This facility uses underground flowing rivers to turn turbines, solar panels, and underground water pumped to the surface for cooling. The need for interconnectivity is also increasing, increasing the demand for retail colocation. It has been identified that the leading providers of colocation services offer as many as 230,000 interconnection possibilities. Many SME industries constitute a large part of the economy. Such SMEs can only afford part of the space for utility, as the IT staff and operations are included in this scale of operation.
- According to European Commission, the United Kingdom, the Innovation score in digitalization was 39.10. Since retail colocation facilities have become old and outdated, their customers are choosing to leave these facilities to find other, newer, multi-tenant data center providers. When retail colocation facilities lose customers, this presents itself in their customer churn metrics. Indeed, public data center companies report churn metrics quarterly, with higher churn implying that more customers are leaving.
