The European data center industry is full of growth and change. The increased demand from COVID-19 and individual European countries are at the forefront of that growth. Hear what EdgeConneX CMO, Phillip Marangella, has to say about it.

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.

Below are some of our takeaways from the discussion.

COVID-19 increased data center demand as traffic moved from offices to homes

The COVID pandemic caused major shifts in the world. Many industries are hurting due to these shifts, but the data center industry has seen an increase in demand.

People are home more now than they were a year ago. Whether they’re working from home, streaming tv shows, playing online video games, or anything else that requires an internet connection, homes are becoming the new edge in the data center industry.

Opportunities are rising in secondary EU markets

Building data centers in Europe can come with challenges like planning for long term scalable power. You need to be able to meet all of your customer's requirements as they continue to grow.

Customer needs today are not what they will be in 5-10 years. Planning for expansion to meet needs in the future can be difficult to balance against the costs of building beyond the needs of today.

There are still a lot of opportunities in the FLAPD (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, & Dublin) markets, but at the same time, there are a number of secondary markets that are beginning to have needs for data centers. That’s why EdgeConneX decided to build in Warsaw & Munich and are continuing to track markets outside of the FLAPD markets.

Expansion into APAC

The APAC data center market is a rapidly growing part of the global data center industry and one that EdgeConnex is tracking for future expansion.

Expansion into the APAC market requires smart strategic planning and is quite a different task than building in either North America or Europe. A good partner in Asia to help navigate the opportunities there is key to success.

We'll continue to track EdgeConneX as they grow and expand into new markets.

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