Asia datacenters rapidly evolve toward hyperscale infrastructure to support regional AI and cloud demand.

According to PwC, the data center market in Asia Pacific is booming and looks set to overtake Europe by 2021. Rapid adoption of cloud services across Asia Pacific is driving the demand for more hyperscale data centers, positioning Asia's data center market for further exponential growth. Key factors driving this growth include increased internet penetration and digital transformation for businesses. Smartphone penetration rates across Asia are expected to grow from 43 percent to 66 percent between 2015 and 2020, and broadband connections from 33 percent to 38 percent in the same period. As consumers adopt a more digitally connected lifestyle and consume richer content such as video streaming, data consumption in Asia Pacific is expected to grow, while businesses are also adopting data-intensive applications such as IoT, data analytics, and artificial intelligence – all of which contribute to an explosive amount of data being generated and exchanged.

Hyperscale data centers differ significantly from traditional facilities in their operational model and infrastructure requirements. The hyperscale model works with hundreds of individual servers that are made to operate together via a high-speed network, requiring scalable infrastructure for computing tasks to ensure efficient performance. Campus solutions are critical in achieving this, requiring data center operators to plan and cluster their facilities together, with multiple compute and storage nodes needed within a given market to provide resiliency for end users. The sheer amount of servers in a hyperscale facility presents unique challenges to building design, cooling systems, power distribution and the data network supporting this infrastructure. To overcome connectivity demands, operators can take advantage of multiple connectivity options—private/public peering exchange points, cloud connectivity solutions and traditional WAN solutions—to improve traffic routing performance and lower interconnectivity costs while ensuring low latency.

The operating environment and market demands differ strongly across Asia Pacific economies. Mature markets like Singapore, Japan and Australia are already catching on to hyperscale data centers, while emerging markets such as Indonesia and Vietnam are still in the preliminary stages of planning infrastructure improvements. Regulatory requirements also shape the landscape, with Indonesia's Government Regulation 82 (GR82) and similar legislation in various countries stipulating that companies must store sensitive personal data in domestic data centers, driving the trend for more localized data centers in each economy. Jonathan King, Group Chief Operating Officer & Head of Investments for STT GDC, notes that while the trend toward hyperscale presents a favorable moment for operators to leapfrog their business to the next level, it also brings unique challenges that operators need to overcome.

Emerging technologies offer significant opportunities for innovation in the hyperscale sector. IoT and data analytics can be used to better monitor and analyze power utility usage, cooling system efficiency, and preemptive maintenance on building infrastructure. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can further automate certain routine work processes in the facility, while 24/7 surveillance with video analytics can be used to keep buildings secure. With technologies such as 5G mobile networks, autonomous vehicles and blockchain becoming more common in the near future, data center demand is likely to push even higher. Future success of hyperscale builds will come from continued innovation to achieve the efficiency, reliability and scale needed to keep step with customer needs, as operators increasingly nurture specialized expertise to address the unique requirements of the Asia Pacific region.