Ireland looks to be fastest-growing hyperscale market in Western Europe

19 May 2022

Image: © Shuo/Stock.adobe.com

The Arizton report said the adoption of cloud-based services and social media use are key factors driving the hyperscale data centre market in Europe.

Ireland is expected to be the fastest-growing hyperscale data centre market in Western Europe over the next six years, according to a new report shared by market researcher Arizton.

The report on Europe’s hyperscale data centre market said Ireland has an annual growth forecast of 5.76pc between this year and 2027. The next-fastest-growing countries in Western Europe are the UK and Germany.

This forecast is similar to one from a Data Centre Pricing (DCP) report last August, which found that Europe is experiencing a data centre boom. The DCP report said Ireland was forecasted to be one of the main growth markets attracting new data centre developments.

The Arizton report said social media use and the adoption of cloud-based services by enterprises are key factors driving the construction of hyperscale data centers in Europe. Key hyperscale companies referenced in the report include Facebook (Meta), Google, AWS and Microsoft.

Nordic countries such as Sweden and Denmark also look set to attract a high number of hyperscale data centre projects due to the availability of renewable energy and options for free cooling, which helps data centres use energy more efficiently.

The report added that, last year, Western Europe contributed to more than 75pc of the hyperscale data centre capacity installed in Europe, with Ireland being one of the major contributors to the market.

Ireland has increasingly become a location for data centre investment in recent years. In 2020, TikTok joined tech giants such as Google, AWS and Microsoft in selecting the country as a data hub. TikTok expects its Irish data centre to be operational early next year. It will store data for its UK and European users.

A Host in Ireland report in 2020 found that ‘hyperscalers’ make up 80pc of Ireland’s data centre capacity. It also found that, while other areas of the economy had been hit hard by Covid-19, data centres had been left largely unscathed.

Despite the benefits of a growing hyperscale market, data centres have grown into a contentious topic in Ireland due to their environmental impact and the toll they may take on the country’s energy supply.

Figures released by the Central Statistics Office this month showed Irish data centres consumed more electricity than rural dwellings in 2021, as their impact on the national grid continues to rise.

10 things you need to know direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of essential sci-tech news.

Leigh Mc Gowran is a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com