By the time you are halfway through reading this blog, close to 8 million search queries would have been generated on Google! That’s just one example of living in an always available, hyper-connected world.
While the exact number is not known, it is estimated that 120 zetabytes of data/information is created, captured, copied, and consumed each day. This data needs to be stored and computed, in a centralized place equipped with up to date computing and networking equipment to process and manage it. Datacenters also enable tasks such as collection, storage, indexing, tagging, distribution, and quick retrieval of mountains of data.
What is Driving Datacenter Demand?
Increasing adoption of technologies, such as cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), across industry verticals has resulted in the rising industry demand for high-quality datacenter infrastructure for storage and networking.
Currently, due to Internet of Things (IoT) and other emerging technologies, massive amount of data is being generated, which is driving the demand for datacenters everywhere.
Additionally, globalization, IT security, business continuity and disaster recovery considerations are also driving businesses to diversify their locations across multiple regions to minimize dependency and risk and improve operational efficiency.
With the ultimate goal of eliminating downtime and sharing data across regions, enterprises are actively deploying geographically dispersed datacenters.
Smartphones, connected technologies, IoT and other factors are demanding a robust datacenter ecosystem with a high speed of deployment, flexibility, scalability, security, consistency, reliability and availability. Digital transformation is directly impacting the development of innovative and efficient digital infrastructure that serves as highly agile, cost-effective, and software-defined infrastructure.
Transformation of current hardware-defined infrastructure to one that is software-defined is a key factor driving demand for hyperscale datacenters that is changing the way businesses function.
Major Trends
Valued at $187.35 billion back in 2020, the year when Covid broke out, the global datacenter market is projected to achieve a value of $517.17 billion in ten years, with a healthy CAGR of 10.5 per cent from 2021 to 2030.
Various nations and governments are actively working to build sustainable, ecologically responsible, energy-efficient, and cost-effective datacenters in order to handle the data surge in the future. Parallelly, strict environmental regulations focusing on energy conservation are being introduced that is going to give rise for enormous demand for green and sustainable datacenters.
India is at the cusp of a great IT evolution, where datacenters will play a crucial role, keeping data at the centre. The stage is well set for both Indian as well as foreign companies to invest over Rs 1.5 trillion in the next six years backed by their plans to expanding datacenter capacities in the country, marking a six-fold growth.
India’s total datacenter capacity is currently pegged at 870 MW, powered by 138 facilities. It is estimated that the country could add another 4,900-5,000 MW of in the next six years.
Providing infrastructure status to datacenters, roll-out of special incentives from Central and State governments such as land at subsidized costs, power subsidies, exemptions on stamp duty, and discounts on the usage of renewable energy through industry-centric policies are set to result in a datacenter boom in India.
The country’s datacenter industry’s revenues are expected to grow at a CAGR of 17-19 percent between FY23 and FY25, backed by an increase in capacity utilization and ramp-up of new locations.
CtrlS’ Expansion Strategy
In response to the growing demand for datacenter services, CtrlS Datacenters has drawn out an aggressive, multi-pronged expansion strategy that will keep the company ahead of competition.
The company has a well chalked out plan to expand its hyperscale and edge datacenters in India. The company will expand its footprint from its existing 10 facilities (eight hyperscale and two edge) to 25 in the coming years. That’s adding an additional 5 million sq ft of space to its existing 1.2 million sq ft.
This includes a 2 million sq ft Hyperscale Datacenter Park in Navi Mumbai, another 2 million sq ft Hyperscale Datacenter Park in Hyderabad and a 1 million square feet DC campus in Chennai. These upcoming projects will together add up to 600 MW capacity. On the Edge front, the company currently operates facilities in Lucknow and Patna and will set up over 20 Edge datacenters across Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of India, with each facility having up to 5 MW of capacity. Edge datacenters assure agility and reliability of operations, which have become inevitable needs of businesses today.
Expanding its presence beyond India, CtrlS is also planning to foray into several potential markets in Southeast Asia and the Middle East to build a connected future that will benefit enterprise customers and hyperscalers.
The company is exploring market opportunities in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Bangladesh and other locations to help its technology customers expand with ease, create mutual synergies and enhance operational efficiencies. The overseas datacenters may have capacities in the range of 10 MW-50 MW. With an all-round expansion strategy, CtrlS Datacenters is set to cater to datacenter, colocation, managed services, cloud and network needs of hyperscalers, enterprises, medium size companies and startups across BFSI, Telecom, Healthcare, Pharma, E-commerce, Media & Entertainment, Manufacturing and other industries, enabling them in their digital transformation journey.