According to an industry report, with 138 data centers, India is currently the world’s 13th largest data center market
As we dive into the second half of 2023, the massive digitization of solutions has further compelled enterprises to adapt to new realities. As a result, we witnessed the Internet of Things and “smart everything” propelling businesses to migrate to the cloud, with more edge data centers being built. According to an industry report, with 138 data centers, India is currently the world’s 13th largest data center market. Moreover, 45 new data centers covering 13 million square feet and 1,015 MW of capacity, are expected to be added to the market by the end of 2025.
For all data center environments, efficiency is not so much a metric for profitability as it is a metric for survival
Mylaraiah JN, VP- Sales, Enterprise Business, India & SAARC, CommScope
Nevertheless, we must gain as clear a perspective as possible—because more of the world depends on cloud services and, by extension, data center operations than ever before. If there’s one thing we know the future holds, it’s that our dependence on them is going to increase.
An unprecedented shift
The challenge is that over recent years the baseline has continued to move due to several world events. First, the world was rocked by global COVID-19 impacting the overnight reality of billions of people working and learning from home. This shift threw immense pressure onto data centers to handle high-bandwidth video and other cloud-based applications over a much more widely distributed area.
Then came the worldwide supply chain disruptions and labor shortages, making it hard for data centers to build additional capacity.
And the looming global inflation and spiking energy prices, exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, forced companies and nations alike to further rearrange their supply chains and make adjustments to continue operating persistently elevated energy costs.
As the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) applications continues to advance at a rapid pace, the demand and pressure on data centers will only increase, with applications capable of swiftly taking hold and capturing millions of users almost overnight.
Doing more, in more places, with less margin for error
Consider all the new applications that rely on capable, reliable data center support to operate. For instance, there is the mobile app ordering at your local restaurant, robots in a warehouse picking your online order just minutes after you hit “Check Out” and even the driving assist-equipped vehicle in the next lane. The speed and volume of data being generated, processed, and transported by these applications and countless others is growing exponentially, especially for a country like India with 759 million Internet users. The world cannot afford downtime, no matter if the consequence is a delayed lunch order or compromising the full efficacy of a 5G-connected driving-assist system.
Low-latency 5G is unlocking the bandwidth—and just as important, the low latency—that many of these new and amazing applications require to work. All that gets piped to data centers, which are increasingly being moved to the edge of the network to shave those last few precious milliseconds off the response time reporter (RTR).
Energy efficiency will continue to drive data center
As we look towards the rest of 2023, sustainability will further capture the attention of all industries. Around the world, we are seeing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) legislation come into effect. The Indian Government is also undertaking various initiatives and working on a data center policy, which is also expected to address sustainability. For all data center environments, efficiency is not so much a metric for profitability as it is a metric for survival. Whether a small to mid-sized multi-tenant data center or a vast cloud or hyperscale deployment, the intense, simultaneous pressures of demand and expenses—particularly energy expenses—will determine its future.
It has become critically important to note the environmental impact. The bottom line is that data centers must increase the efficiency of their delivery of services, using fiber and edge-based infrastructure, as well as machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). And at the same time, they must increase the efficiency of operations—and that means reducing energy use per unit of computing power. In addition to that, cooling techniques that are cost-effective and consume less energy are expected to be adopted by data center operators. According to a recent industry report, the data center cooling market in India has the potential to grow by USD 775.85 million by 2025, and the market’s growth momentum will accelerate at a CAGR of 22.49%.
Certainly, cost is the most obvious factor when weighing energy efficiency, but it’s by no means the only one.
With dreading headlines about rolling blackouts and insufficient heating, regulatory and social opinions will only tilt further away from data center developers. That is why it is so urgent that energy efficiency takes top priority and data centers make those critical upgrades, such as converting storage to the most efficient media – based on access time and using detailed analytics to identify storage, computing, and power consolidation opportunities. Other upgrades include, deploying ultra-efficient UPS systems, re-evaluating the thermal limits of the center itself, considering colocation to share electrical and communications overhead and accounting for stress on existing electrical grid and moving to more sustainable power localized to the data center.
On a more strategic level, moving data centers to the edge of the network, connected by high-speed fiber, can improve energy efficiency and latency. Also, consider locations with access to renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear.
There is an opportunity for the largest cloud and hyperscale data centers to take advantage of localized power generation.
Efficiency flows downstream
It is important to appreciate the broader social and commercial impact a data center has on the world and how fast, robust data storage and processing can improve all of the most vital parts of our days—and, indeed, our lives.
For instance, every day, the cloud-based services that data centers enable help employees to connect with each other and work efficiently from their homes, office, or while traveling. Similarly, it also helps farmers to plan, plant and harvest healthier crops while reducing wasted water and chemical applications and factories to build, stock, manage and ship products with robotic labor that prevents countless workplace accidents and injuries. Ordinary people are able to create expressive user-created content that connects individuals across a school or around the planet in gaming, social media and the metaverse. It also helps service providers to stream all kinds of entertainment and information content to homes, laptops and mobile devices in a seamless mesh of connectivity. All of these and countless other instances, show how much efficiency in our daily life depends on data centers—and that demonstrates how important energy efficiency will matter to those data centers in 2023 and beyond.
