Where are we building data centers? Why? What markets are primed for interconnectivity glory? Which ones are getting left in the dust?
The data center market is in the midst of an unprecedented shift that started—publicly at least—five years ago with the announced moratoria on new development in Singapore and Frankfurt. Those regulatory interventions highlighted the challenges the industry faces in securing sufficient power.
Since then, it turned out that data centers would need much more power than had been realized—just at a time when regulators and community organizations were growing increasingly critical of the sector's existing demand.
Our Data Center Research Service estimates that, as of 2024, colocation operators in the top ten data center markets by MW consume about 13 gigawatts (GW) of power.
That's enough power to generate electricity for roughly 10 million homes—or, in this case, only about 1,000 commercial data centers!
Many of the world’s top data center markets face issues such as rising energy costs, connectivity, and in some cases, moratoriums on new data center buildouts.
To help decision-makers navigate these challenges and prepare for the future, we’ve launched the Market Connectivity Score (MCS), a dynamic tool that measures current and potential connectivity and data center market size for 3,000 cities worldwide.
As of Q4 2024, the MCS ranks Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as the fastest-growing city for near-future connectivity infrastructure growth.
Competition between the United States and China continues to be a hot topic.
Take The Economist, which recently published America v China: who controls Asia’s internet?
While this piece did a great job highlighting the impact of geopolitical tensions on telecom infrastructure throughout Asia, my colleague Alan Mauldin and I want to expand on this coverage by offering updated data on two important areas of the story: cloud and cables.
With the release of our new WAN Manager Survey intel, it was only a matter of time before we got to the s-words: SD-WAN and SASE.
Earlier this month, we mentioned both buzzwords in our breakdown of major survey findings. Today I want to spend a little more time with these technologies.
And don't worry, dear readers. There will totally be charts.
If you’re a regular on this blog, you're probably familiar with our submarine cable and cloud infrastructure maps.
But you may not know about the third tool in our interactive map tool belt: the internet exchange map.
Today, I'm breaking down three fundamental components of cloud networks.
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