Data centre predictions evolve from 2014 to 2019

- The outlook on renewables as a source of data centre power has shifted

- Rack density has increased, but not as much as expected

- Edge computing grows in importance

- Talent management has to evolve

Vertiv has identified an increasing focus on edge computing for data centres as we move towards 2025.

Data centre operators and owners in Singapore and Asia Pacific are highly optimistic about the future of edge computing, a new survey from Vertiv has revealed.

In Data Centre 2025: Closer to the Edge, a global, industrywide survey* conducted by Vertiv, 57% of respondents from Singapore expect IT resource utilisation at the edge to reach at least 60% by 2025.

This reflects a global sentiment on the increasing prevalence of edge computing in the data centre landscape, which is fuelled by more process-intensive applications such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things and 5G technology. Globally, 55% of respondents expect IT resource utilisation rates to grow at the edge by 2025.

“Five years ago, when Vertiv first conducted this survey, the idea of edge computing was quite new. Back then, many organisations expected to allocate their resources towards the cloud and/or hybrid architectures,” said Hitesh Prajapati, Country Manager for Vertiv in Singapore.

“Today, edge computing is clearly regarded as one of the key drivers for digital transformation and an important opportunity space. We are seeing many data centre operators and enterprises in Asia, including Singapore, being extremely positive about investing in and growing edge sites to support the fast-proliferating applications at the edge.”

The migration to the edge is changing the way today’s industry leaders think about the data centre. Amongst the participants who have edge sites today or expect to have edge sites in 2025, more than half (53%) expect the number of edge sites they support to grow by at least 100% with 20% expecting a 400% or more increase. Collectively, survey participants expect that the total number of edge computing sites will grow 226% globally between now and 2025.

"The edge of the network was always an outlier. Nobody thought about it when it came to design but this is very critical now in terms of design, in terms of computing capacity," said Prajapati.

“The edge requires a different approach to critical infrastructure solutions. Micro data centres, which are rapidly deployable, flexible and compact are fast becoming the preferred approach to enabling many of today’s high data bandwith deployments,” he added.

Highlights include:

-  Respondents are no longer as bullish on the prospects for solar and wind power in the data centre as they were in 2014. Then, they projected that about 34% of data centre power would come from renwable sources by 2025. Now, the expectation is 21% – still optimistic, but mindful of the ambitious timeline.

"People have been more pragmatic in terms of outlook. There's not going to be a big shift to renewables so fast," said Prajapati, who also shared that the emphasis now is to have renewable energy as part of an overall energy sourcing plan, as opposed to being the main source of energy.

Respondents globally thought in 2014 that the No. 1 source of energy for data centres in 2025 would be solar. The current thinking is that the leading source of power will be hydroelectric. According to the research, 18% in 2019 say hydroelectric power will be the energy that data centres rely on, while 15% believe that oil will continue to power data centres in 2025. This is followed by a prediction of natural gas (14%) and finally solar energy (13%).

-  Globally, 16% of participants expect to be retired by 2025, exacerbating an already problematic talent shortage. In Singapore that number is 23%. "Today, we need new hires with basic IT skills, as well as competency in critical thinking and problem-solving," said Prajapati. Any shortfall in data centre skills will need to be addressed, for example by in-house training programmes.

- There is more of an emphasis on green technologies and energy efficiency. "People have been pressing us to move to more greener technologies. There's a lot of emphasis on greener technology. There's a lot of work that we and other companies like us have done for technologies, for infrastructure, for better and more efficient technology, but primary source of utilities will be fossil fuel-based," Prajapati said.

- Average power density evolves as a measurement which makes more sense for specific verticals like fintech or gaming. In 2014, respondents predicted that an average of 52 kW would be produced per rack. As enterprise infrastructure has become more complex, with resources in core data centres, cloud, edge and colocation-based facilities with possibly high-performance computing as well, peak rack densities are a more critical measurement compared to average rack densities, Prajapati said.

"For most of the customers the rack power densities are still in the single-digit range depending on what application they're having. Colos might be higher," he said.

Explore:

Read the Data Centre 2025: Closer to the Edge report

*Vertiv surveyed over 800 respondents globally, 25% of which were from the Asia Pacific region. Of these, 25% were from Singapore (53% in the colocation business), 20% from Thailand, 12% from Vietnam, 13% from Malaysia and 17% from Australia and New Zealand.