A rapidly growing data market
According to a report by market research firm Technavio, the data centre market in China is expected to post exponential growth over the next five years, with a CAGR on CAPEX revenue of around 13 percent between 2016 and 2020. Studies show that the outlook for the sector looks bright as China is set to become a leader in data centre infrastructure.
The China data centre market has been valued at 13.01 billion USD in 2020 with the expectation for the total market value to be more than double by 2026 with 36.18 billion USD. The CAGR on CAPEX revenue is expected to be 19,2 percent between 2021 and 2026 according to the industry report by Mordor Intelligence.
Based on industry reports the China data centre market is experiencing significant growth. Much of this growth has come from the widespread adoption of data centres by government agencies during the last decade. In addition, major government investment in data centre advances, targeted at stimulating the country’s digital economy, is boosting the adoption of cloud services, big data and IoT.
A rapidly growing data market
The growing possibilities of E-commerce
Another key factor is also a significant boost in E-commerce. More than 70 percent of the Chinese population are actively using E-commerce services. This both includes actions directed at commercial use and a wide range of other online activities. The need for establishing new data centres to handle the increasing demand for servers. This naturally requires plenty of energy to run, which is why the sector is also looking more into the possibilities of being powered by renewable energy.
The growing possibilities of E-commerce
Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
Data centre operators are constantly searching for ways to utilise floor space, electricity and equipment more efficiently. They are being helped in this quest by the latest generation of DCIM tools, which can monitor and manage the operations of both the facility’s support functions – such as air conditioning and PDUs – and its IT equipment, such as servers and network switches. These DCIM tools can also provide colocation customers with transparency into their data centre’s operations, for a single, holistic point of view into the status of their IT infrastructure. As part of its IT Infrastructure Management capability, China Telecom offers various key DCIM services, including 24/7/365 proactive monitoring, operation management and system optimization.
Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
The Converged Data Centre
Rather than managing their storage, CPU and virtualisation in separate silos, an increasing number of data centre service providers are graduating towards a more converged IT infrastructure that can utilise off-the-shelf appliances, all managed by a single software stack. The objective? To reduce overall operational complexity, while increasing flexibility, scaling and efficiency. According to recent figures by 451 Research, 40 percent of organizations are already using this type of architecture to some degree – a number that is set to rise as more enterprises abandon traditional stand-alone servers in favour of cloud apps and colocation services.
The Converged Data Centre
Improved Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
CDN site acceleration can be a key differentiator for ISPs that want to offer more responsive web hosting services in China. By serving static assets from the network edge, CDNs are also now improving user experience and reliability for a wide range of industry verticals and technologies, including eCommerce, finance, media/publishing, SaaS and mobile apps. China Telecom’s CDN network includes more than 60 CDN cache nodes in mainland China alone, accelerating the delivery of websites, downloads and streaming data.
Demand for faster, more stable broadband connections will only increase in China as companies look to extend their presence and provide better quality and cybersecurity. The hyper-converged CDN data centre is likely to be a core enabler, offering advanced support for on-demand streaming, live broadcasts and adaptive streaming media over HTTP. Further down the line, it’s possible that individual mobile devices, communicating via P2P-style networks, will function as CDN “micro” nodes to ease data centre workloads.
Improved Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
Hyperscale Data Centre Partnerships
The huge resource needs of applications such as big data, IoT, social networks and IaaS are leading to a growing demand for hyperscale data centre architectures. These allow users to seamlessly add on-demand computing resources from any location. Another key driver is the need for customers to continue to receive quality and secure data centre infrastructure, facilities and services as they expand internationally.
In order to meet these demands, it’s expected that more data centre providers will enter into strategic partnerships to provide international customers with large-scale, carrier-and-cloud neutral, multi-tenant data centre products. A prime example of this is the recent cooperation framework agreement struck between China Telecom, Daily-Tech and Global Switch.
Although the United States still accounts for 45 percent of the world’s major cloud and internet data centres, China leads the world in internet consumption, with 710 million people online, according to a recent report by CNNIC (China’s Internet Network Information Centre). As demand for cloud computing and other data services continues to grow in China, advances in data centre technology can be expected to play a key role in both the integration of these technologies with modern manufacturing and China’s gradual transition to a service economy.
Hyperscale Data Centre Partnerships