The Global Data Center Transformation Market Size is expected to gain market growth in the forecast period of 2020 to 2025, with a CAGR of 7.2% in the forecast period of 2020 to 2025. It is expected to reach USD 7958.4 million by 2025, from USD 6034.7 million in 2019. Source

2019 was a year of digital transformation across an array of industries and areas, and the data center market was no exception. Under increasing pressure to stay relevant and keep up with rapidly advancing technologies, data center providers saw a need to transform and prepare for the future. 

2020 has proven that collecting and sharing data is essential and can accelerate growth. Healthcare is making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for drug development, while big data is a new industry shaping the future. 5G (Link To 5G Article) is driving an increase in demand for edge computing. At the same time, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will also improve the deployment of new services in this market for both the end-user and internal employees. 

What lies ahead for the data center infrastructure and industry post-2020? We’ve identified three themes that will shape the data center industry in the coming months.

1. AI Driving Data Center Efficiency 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a leading role in data center growth. AI is a hardware-intensive computing technology that can analyse data from both near and far. That includes everything from algorithm training at cloud campuses to inference engines running on smartphones. AI can make products and managed services smarter, making it and emerging strategic priority.

Ever since Google published research that it used AI in its data center to improve efficiency, many firms have followed suit. For example, in just 18 months, Google used its AI-powered Google DeepMind system to reduce the energy required for data center cooling by 40%, which is equivalent to a 15% reduction in overall PUE overheads. Source

Additionally, hiring employees with the right skill sets is a massive challenge in this digital era. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 75% of organisations will experience visible business disruptions due to I&O skills gaps (an increase from less than 20% in 2016). Source

AI will play a huge role in automating many of the tasks humans do today. Similarly, AI can be used in a SOC in data centers. It can complement current Security Incidents and Event Management (SIEM) systems, by analysing incidents and inputs from multiple systems and devising an appropriate incident response system. AI-based systems can also assist in identifying malicious traffic from false positives, helping data center administrators handle cybersecurity crimes more efficiently. 

AI Hardware Startups are also bringing their products to the market. A company called ‘Groq’ stated that its new chipset is capable of 1 PetaOp/s performance on a single implementation. This is equivalent to one quadrillion operations per second. These astonishing specs have positive implications for data centers, including much higher rack densities and more liquid cooling. 

2. Data Centers Go Green

Wave power, carbon capture, solar and wind power, renewable energy; these factors may all play a more significant role in how data centers operate and are powered in the future.

When all systems, including mechanical and electrical systems, conserve energy, a green or sustainable data center is born. It emits fewer carbon footprints, thereby saving cost and increasing energy efficiency. These eco-friendly data centers can assist modern businesses in saving electricity consumption and reducing carbon emissions.

The green data center market share is expected to grow in networking solutions at a CAGR of around 27% by 2024. This enormous growth is primarily due to its exponential growth in the Asia Pacific region in recent years. The area is poised to show consistent growth in the coming years due to a boom in industrial startups in countries such as India and China. Source

Factors Responsible For The Rise Of Green Data Centers

• Efforts to reduce PUE in countries like the UK, Singapore & India.
• Rising electricity tariffs in countries and across the world.
• Increased need for speed, flexibility, inventiveness and nimbleness of data centers.
• Growth in data and increased awareness about protecting the environment.

The BFSI sector, among many, has recorded a tremendous growth in data over the recent years. This rapid growth has led to enterprises searching for sustainable and virtual data centers. Such data centers are more advanced and cost-effective, making it easier for companies to meet their ever-increasing data requirements.

3. Agility – The Core of Efficient Data Centers

Digital transformation relies on the scalability of physical infrastructure behind it. Data centers must be designed to not only keep up with technological advancements but also to anticipate new trends and standards. Agile data center installation allows businesses to meet the need for speed and streamline work processes. 

Did you know, a whopping amount of IT managers overprovision their centers by as much as 40%? This is wasteful for businesses operations in the long run. A practical, agile data center should ensure future-proofing without wasting funds on overprovisioning. Source

Combining event-driven workflows across compute, storage, network and service domains can ensure data centers operate at a rapid pace. Quickly changing personas and enforcing policy compliance across domains leads to seamless virtual integration. This leads to an intelligent, virtualised infrastructure that quickly adjusts to changing business needs. With unmatched visibility across private clouds and public cloud-based services, endpoint capacity and performance planning can be maximised.  

4. Hybrid Computing Models

Post-2020, organisations will increasingly forgo enterprise or cloud-based data centers in favour of hybrid cloud architectures that incorporate public and private cloud models along with edge assets around a reconfigured core. 

This trending hybrid architecture will allow organisations to build and maintain control of sensitive data while still meeting demands for more capacity and increased computing capabilities closer to the consumer.

Vertiv, CEO, Rob Johnson, said: “A new equilibrium is emerging in the data center space as the industry wrestles with capacity challenges and advanced applications that are forcing significant changes to data centers of all shapes and sizes.”

“At the same time, the speed of deployment is increasingly becoming a tipping point in technology decisions and will likely shape investment and innovation in the space as we head into 2020. This will manifest itself in many ways, but the message to data center equipment providers is clear: The status quo is not acceptable.” Source

While cloud computing will continue to be an integral part of most organisations, hybrid architectures will go mainstream. Data specialists are noticing subtle changes in organisation strategies as they seek to tailor their IT mix and spending to the needs of their applications. As more hybrid architectures are emerging, it has become increasingly clear that enterprise data centers are alive and well, even if its role is shifting to reflect a mix that best serves modern organisations.

Whether it be for enterprise, colocation, or pods, Legrand offers the perfect power distribution and monitoring solutions for mission critical environments. Known for their reliability, flexibility and efficient design, all our products have earned industry-leading roles.

Learn more about our data center solutions here: https://www.starlinepower.com/applications/data-center/