New data and forecasts from Synergy Research Group reveal a substantial surge in the average capacity of upcoming hyperscale data centers, projected to surpass twice the current operational ones. This growth trajectory, fueled by generative AI technology and services, underscores an intensified demand for more robust facilities to accommodate burgeoning critical IT loads.
As individual data centers witness a significant uptick in average IT load, the proliferation of operational hyperscale data centers is expected to persist. Moreover, a portion of existing data centers will undergo retrofitting to amplify their capacity. Cumulatively, this will lead to an approximate threefold increase in the total capacity of all operational hyperscale data centers within the next six years.
While the landscape of hyperscale data centers continues to evolve, regionally and in terms of ownership structure, the collective count of global data centers has doubled in the past five years. The key impact of recent generative AI advances lies not in increasing the quantity of data centers, which are still expected to grow at a rate of over a hundred per year, but in the substantial increase in the power requirements to operate these centers. The surge in the number of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) within hyperscale data centers, primarily driven by AI, necessitates a significant boost in power density for racks and data center facilities. As a result, hyperscale operators are revisiting their data center architecture and deployment strategies to accommodate these changing requirements.
Synergy Research also predicts that over the next five years, while hyperscale operators will surpass 50% of all capacity, enterprise on-premise data centers will decline to below 30%. Despite this trend, on-premise data centers are not expected to disappear completely; instead, they will maintain a relatively steady capacity, experiencing a slight annual decline. Colocation non-hyperscale’s share of total capacity is also expected to remain stable during this period.
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