Why hyperscale data centers in Australia forecast global industry growth

This is an episode of HawkTalk, datacenterHawk’s series of candid one on one conversations with executives and leaders in the data center industry. If you enjoyed this episode, you can check them all out on our blog. If you’d like to know when we release future episodes, you can subscribe here.

James Veness is the Head of Portfolio for Data Centers with Fujitsu Australia, and the work he’s doing is just one example of how the global infrastructure of hyperscale data centers only continues to grow.

As we’ve shared before, according to Infiniti Research, the global data center market is anticipated to grow by over $270 billion between 2020-2024. If Veness is a case study in anything it’s that these projections seem more than fair as the reach of data centers expands across various countries and continents.

Veness manages a portfolio of six different data centers across Australia. His portfolio is one of Fujitsu Australia’s seven portfolios made up of over 100 data centers in Japan, the U.K., and Singapore. Their flagship site in Western Sydney, a popular location for computer farms, is a very large hyperscale site that is now up to 90 megawatts, and it is there alongside a secondary site that is up to 30 megawatts.

Per our research, Northern Virginia, Northern California, Phoenix, Dallas, and Chicago have all seen hyperscale development and leasing. But clearly, these types of data centers are continuing to show up all over the globe, and this growth is changing the entire data center landscape.

As Veness shares on this latest HawkTalk, it was only a few years ago when you would build a single data center that would focus on every customer—hyperscale, wholesale, retail, etc. But what's changed over the last few years is that different customers now have different requirements. That includes design, build, scale, speed, security, efficiency, connectivity, and everything in between. All these factors vary depending on the type of customer.

Providers such as Fujitsu and others are now building for one specific market, and with all this intensely focused building, we’re seeing a wave of growth in individual markets. Sydney has now become a very mature market, and with well over 500 megawatts of load, it's growing exponentially. Sydney also has three distinct zones within the data center market—Southeast zone, North zone, and West zone—that make it quite an important regional footprint.

This growth then ripples across the rest of the continent into Melbourne, and especially Perth, with the upgraded infrastructure coming in that wasn't there a few years ago. Factor in things like Australia being one of the first countries on the planet to see the sun every day, as well as being a relatively safe and stable political environment, and it’s clear why companies view it as an attractive place to build.

With the growth of hyperscale data centers in North America, Europe, Asia, and now Australia, combined with the increased demands from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and the like, the world is looking at more and more development of these types of centers. This will raise questions regarding supply and demand, as well as sustainability and other issues. People like Veness and companies like Fujitsu are simply forebearers of a future full of data centers.

We’re excited to watch the growth of data center markets in Asia Pacific. If you need additional data to guide your decisions in Asia Pacific, then you can request access to our upcoming data center market reports on Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney.