Comparison of USA, India & UK Datacenters
With every waking day, there's an ever rise in data and information that is available to us. These data need to be put in a place where they can be easily accessible. With the explosion of the internet, an ever-growing need for storing data has been on the increase. From businesses to brands, to individuals, the data from these aggregates can be rightly stored on what is known as servers.
Servers happen to be specialized computers where data and information can be stored, shared, retrieved, and redistributed. They are connected to local networks through which they can be accessed from the Internet. For one thing, servers are massive in size and are constantly running, making them produce a lot of heat. They would require cooling so as not to overheat. They would also need to be monitored around the clock to ensure the data is not compromised with things like cyber attacks or power outages. This is where data centers come in.
What Is Datacenter
A data center is a physical building (which can be a dedicated space within a building or even a cluster of buildings) that houses computer systems and their associated devices, such as storage systems and telecommunications.
Although a data center is considered a singular thing, there are however technical components that make it what it is. They are grouped into three categories:
Computing: This entails the processing power and the memory to run the applications, which are provided by high-end servers.
Storage: Here important data of enterprises (business, etc) are stored, ranging from tape to solid-state drives, using several backups.
Networking: This is where the interconnection between the data center component and the outside world occurs–including switches, application delivery controllers, routers, etc.
Datacenter varies depending on the reason why it was built. Some data centers are used as backup storage for other data centers, while some houses and handles the core IT tasks of many businesses scattered across the globe. They are also broadly categorized by ownership as:
Enterprise data centers are centers built and owned by large technology firms, such as the like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. They are also centers built by government agencies, insurance firms, financial institutions, and other industries.
Colocation data centers are centers built, owned, and managed by data services providers, like Digital Realty Trust in the US, Web Werks in New Delhi, and VITRUS Data Center in the UK.
The Data Center Market
Over the years, the data center has become an industry to reckon with. Data centers beyond housing computers that stores and processes data has become a means that foster the economic growth of a nation, create job opportunities and provides a means to healthy competitive innovation with the rest of the world.
Technological advancement like sensors and drones, which farmers use to gather key information about their soil, monitor their crops, and find ways to increase their yield, are made possible with the aid of data centers. Heat sensor drones deployed after a natural disaster to locate survivors have been more effective and faster than first responders owing to data centers.
A more insightful way to examine the effect of data centers across the globe is to make a comparison between three flashpoints: the US, UK, and India.
Datacenter Industry in the US
The US plays host to 2696 data centers across all 50 states. It has been described as the biggest data center industry globally, owning up to $200 billion of the market size. Of the more than 2696 data centers, 1860 happens to be colocation data centers.
Over the years, the data center industry in the US has contributed not only to the technological growth and cutting-edge innovation of this nation but has also seen a huge facelift in the economical sector.
On average, a typical data center built in the US employs 1688 local workers, while providing $77.7 million in wages to these workers. It goes as far as producing $ 243.5 million in output while generating $9.9 million in revenue for the state and local governments. This data center would also prove to be a support to more than 157 local jobs.
From the above, you best believe that the data center industry in the US would continue to grow massively.
Datacenter Industry in the UK
The UK Datacenter industry is the second largest in the world, and largest in Europe, housing 452 datacenter across the UK. It also has the second-largest market size. More than £20 billion ($27.1 billion) is spent on data center equipment across the UK, accounting for 24% of Europe's DC exponential growth.
UK data center sees an 8% growth annually, and it's projected to increase to more than 12% in the nearest future. Only Germany happens to be the closest to its rapid growth, coming third, and having 443 data centers.
Generally for Europe, data centers have been a source of innovative growth in technology, making them pace-setters in certain fields like the engineering and robotics industry.
Datacenter Industry in India
Although, India may not come close to its Asiatic neighbor–China–in terms of the number of data centers it plays host to. China comes fourth globally, with 416 data centers, while India has 123 data centers. Nevertheless, India has seen significant growth in its data center industry owning $7 billion of the market size (3.5%).
This might seem small compared to others topping the list. But this robust growth wasn't so a few years ago. What triggered this rapid growth? There are currently more than 1 billion internet users in India–including businesses, and firms. The average internet user in India consumes up to 10GB per month.
This surge in internet usage has prompted the set-up of packet data centers scattered across India. This rise in demand has been projecting to sky rock the data center market in India, giving a $5 billion increase in market size in 2025. This projection has caused several data center project construction to be launched. Some are spearheaded by existing data centers owners, while others are government-oriented projects who see the needs for these data centers.
Conclusions
Datacenters are an integral part of a tech-oriented world. Over the years, its significance has been seen to be effective in an all-around industry. While the US and the UK continue to take the lead, there's no telling that with time others like India would also be a force to reckon with.