Investment in data centres predicted to hit €9bn by 2021
UP to €9bn will have been invested in the development of data centres in Ireland by 2021, a new report on the sector has predicted.
Some €1.1bn is set to be invested in data centre construction in 2018, bringing the cumulative amount invested here to €5.7bn.
The figures are contained in The Data Centre Q1 2018 report produced by Host in Ireland in association with Bit power.
The report’s findings were discussed at the second Data Symposium at Dublin City University yesterday.
The event, which marked the beginning of Host in Ireland’s ‘Data Centres Ireland: Industry of Substance’ campaign, saw contributions from a number of key speakers including Tanya Duncan of Interxion, David McAuley of Bit power and Alec Leckey from Intel.
“The first quarter of 2018 has seen the continued expansion of the Irish data hosting market, with new projects and expansions being announced in Dublin and Cork,” said Host In Ireland founder and president Garry Connolly.
“We continue to see strong growth with the granting of planning, and new planning applications for, in particular the metro Dublin area.
“While the start of the year has been very positive for the market with €1bn anticipated to be spent in 2018, the medium to longer-term sustained growth of the industry will depend on the availability of energy options in the Dublin metro [area].”
There are 46 data centres in operation in Ireland. Dublin’s south-west region has the largest cluster, and is home to a number of facilities operated by major names such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
According to the Data Centre report, there has been a net increase of 60 megawatts to account for planned and operational centres since the beginning of this year.
The report shows that only 42.5pc of power allocated to data centres in Ireland will be used as per the assumed annual power utilisation factor.