The data centre market has experienced strong momentum in 2021 with Mumbai recording the largest supply increase. Nearly 200 MW was added in Q3 (July to September) 2021, a 24 per cent increase in one quarter.
The co-location supply in Mumbai has increased significantly in the first three quarters of this year, with the city’s total IT capacity crossing the gigawatt mark (alongside Shanghai and Tokyo in Asia Pacific), Knight Frank said in its Data Centre Report, 2021.
Total IT capacity in Mumbai jumped from 812MW in Q2 to 1,006MW by Q3-end.
The report also said, quarterly take-up of IT power in Mumbai has increased from2.78 MW in Q2 2021 to 6.42 MW Q3 2021, the highest quarterly take-up on record.
The Indian data centre market currently houses an estimated 445 MW of critical IT capacity across the seven cities of Mumbai, NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
According to Shishir Baijal, Chairman and Managing Director at Knight Frank India, as digital transformation accelerates the demand for (digital) infrastructure such as data centres will also move up.
“The digital economy in India is estimated to grow to $1 trillion by 2025; data centres constitute an integral part of this growth story, which has only gathered steam since the onset of the pandemic and its associated disruptions,” he said.
EMEA market
Knight Frank’s report cited that 2021 brought uncertainty as to what demand would look like after the accelerated buy-cycles of the initial Covid reaction in the EMEA (Europe, The Middle East and Africa) market. After some steady growth in Q1 and Q2, the third quarter witnessed a decline in new supply additions. Total supply for the EMEA region increased by around 200MW, compared with growth of 400 MW in Q2 and just under 300MW in Q1.
APAC market
On the other other hand, the APAC region saw significant acceleration in development and deal making activity in Q3 2021.
It was during this quarter that Vantage Data Centre announced the acquisition of Agile Data Centre’s business - totalling almost 170MW across key markets of Tokyo, Osaka and Melbourne - and took over PCCW’s data centre portfolio of 100MW across Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Total supply (live, phased, and under construction) in APAC increased by nearly 500MW in Q3, bringing total capacity in the region to over 7,500 MW. Take-up was over 100 MW, consistent with the quarterly average throughout 2021 to date.