It’s undeniable that the world is increasingly digital. Over the past few years, we have witnessed significant developments in new and emerging technologies such as augmented reality, auto-driving, the metaverse, and many more, which has led to the rising reliance on cloud and digital infrastructures.
In Asia-Pacific, the appetite for digital is only growing thanks to increasing smartphone adoption, online business penetration, and rising government initiatives to digitize economies. For example, in 2021, the Australian government unveiled an AU$1.2 billion scheme to boost the country’s digital future.[1] South Korea also has plans to invest KRW 9 trillion (around US$7.51 billion) this year to foster new tech industries as part of its digital New Deal program.[2] These government initiatives, just to name a few, further expedite businesses’ pace of digitalization. As a result, many digital leaders are relying on global and regional connectivity, and hybrid multicloud solutions to meet the exponential demand for cloud, big data and IoT systems.
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The exponential rise of the Asia-Pacific digital economy
If you take a closer look at where Asia-Pacific stands, you will be surprised at the region’s progress in emerging technologies. Today, Asia-Pacific has grown into a digital innovation hub, with its countries accounting for half of the world’s internet users and nearly half of global investments[3]. It is now a top destination for venture capitalists to seek investments in emerging technologies, including virtual reality, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, robotics, drones and artificial intelligence. In fact, according to McKinsey Global Institute, Asia accounts for 56% of the worldwide start-up investment in IoT technologies, and holds 39% of global patents.[4] Furthermore, according to the Global Interconnection Index Volume 5 (GXI), the Asia-Pacific region is expected to have an estimated 46% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for enterprise private interconnection to the cloud and IT providers between 2020-2024, which is one of the highest among regions.
This continues to drive hyperscalers’ investments in the region to meet the rising demand. Google has recently launched the Digital Future Initiative, an AU$1 billion investment in Australian infrastructure, research and partnerships.[5] Oracle has also expanded rapidly during the past three years with the new cloud regions launched in Australia, Japan, Korea and Singapore.[6] These digital trends are in line with Equinix’s evolving digital investment in Asia-Pacific to power hyperscalers’ success—so that they can continue to accelerate digital possibilities.
Powering the engine for digital economy development
What makes hyperscale data centers unique is their ability to offer tailor-made, scalable facilities and services based on hyperscale companies’ requirements. To help their customers access, store and run data seamlessly on the cloud, hyperscale companies need exceptional capacity, storage and flexibility to match their internal compute, storage and edge cache requirements. By deploying a hyperscale data center, hyperscalers can become exceptionally agile to demand, with the ability to scale up, down, and out to meet any load they service. Practically, this means they can handle the growing demand from organizations in Asia faster, more efficiently and in a cost-effective manner.
Therefore, to support the growth of hyperscale companies and facilitate digital advancements in Asia-Pacific, Equinix has entered joint ventures to build xScale™ data centers in the region, including Osaka, Seoul, Sydney and Tokyo, delivering approximately 238 megawatts of power to hyperscalers when completed. This brings Equinix’s global xScale data center portfolio to more than US$8 billion across 36 facilities, and an expected greater than 720 megawatts of power capacity when they are all completed and entirely constructed. Furthermore, to serve cloud-strategic enterprise customers, all of Equinix’s xScale data centers are located in close proximity to rich digital and business ecosystems found closely within its metro International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers.
As the leading data center provider in Asia-Pacific, the expansion of Equinix xScale facilities also advances Equinix’s comprehensive suite of interconnection and digital services that tie into hyperscale companies’ existing access points, speeding up their connectivity to their future enterprise customers. Additionally, by interconnecting securely with more than 10,000 businesses on Platform Equinix®, hyperscalers can answer the growing demand for hybrid cloud architectures and consolidate core and access-point deployments into one global provider to streamline and simplify their rapid growth in Asia-Pacific. For organizations, this means that they can deploy their multicloud strategy by interconnecting to their cloud or SaaS provider of choice within minutes, across several locations, as hyperscalers can provide their cloud service infrastructure everywhere it is needed.
The future of hyperscale in Asia-Pacific
With increasing infrastructure investments to accommodate the exponential digital growth in the region, it’s also important to consider the environmental impact of such efforts. So far, regular colocation centers have been able to build and redesign their operations to become more sustainable, and fortunately, these considerations are also applied to hyperscale data centers. As a leader in data center sustainability, Equinix is committed to using 100% clean, sustainable and renewable energy for its global platform, and the xScale™ data centers are no different. All xScale data centers will be LEED certified or regionally equivalent and will be designed, built, and operated according to Equinix’s high energy-efficient standards. Organizations and hyperscale companies can then ensure that they operate efficiently and sustainably.
As more organizations deploy a digital-first strategy, Asia-Pacific sees growing cloud adoption and digital transformation to advance technologies further. It’s estimated that the demand for data centers in Asia-Pacific will nearly double to 5,880 megawatts in the next three to five years.[7] Therefore, the expansion of hyperscale data centers in the region is critical to facilitating the digital development of enterprises. In the future, Equinix’s xScale data centers will continue to strategically grow and support the evolving needs of these companies.
[1] https://www.itpro.co.uk/business-strategy/careers-training/359451/australia-to-invest-12-billion-to-become-leading-digital-economy
[2] https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20220125009000320
[3] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/asia-pacific/asias-future-is-now
[4] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/asia-pacific/how-asia-can-boost-growth-through-technological-leapfrogging
[5] https://www.austrade.gov.au/international/invest/investor-updates/google-invests-a-1-billion-in-australian-infrastructure-research-and-partnerships
[6] https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/oow19-oracle-cloud-accelerates-global-expansion-091619.html
[7] https://www.mingtiandi.com/real-estate/research-policy/knight-frank-forecasts-apac-data-centre-demand-to-double-within-5-years/
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