€9bn to be invested in Ireland’s data centre industry by 2021

According to a report produced by Host in Ireland and Bitpower, Ireland’s data centre construction industry is set to see up to €9bn of investment come 2021.

“The first quarter of 2018 has seen the continued expansion of the Irish data hosting market, with new projects and expansions being announced in Dublin and Cork,” said Host In Ireland founder and president Garry Connolly.

“We continue to see strong growth with the granting of planning, and new planning applications for, in particular the metro Dublin area.”

See also:

• Google begins construction of $600mn Alabama data center

• Construction begins on the Japan-Guam-Australia Cable System

• Improving data centre energy efficiency

This year is forecast to see €1.1bn in data centre investment in Ireland, bringing the total cumulative investment to €5.7 billion, with over €1bn expected to come over each of the following years.

Currently, there are 46 successfully built and operational data centres across Ireland including facilities from Microsoft and Amazon, with these data centres combined having over 480MW of operational power.

Further, in Ireland there is currently 110MW under construction across a number of data centre projects, whilst a further 320MW having been given full planning permission, with the country’s total capacity set to nearly double once these projects are complete.

However, the report states that this future growth in the industry will largely depend on the development of energy infrastructure to support it, with the data centre industry accounting for as much as 5.5% of Ireland’s total 1.56TWH power requirements in 2017.

“While the start of the year has been very positive for the market with €1bn anticipated to be spent in 2018, the medium to longer-term sustained growth of the industry will depend on the availability of energy options in the Dublin metro [area],” Connolly continued.

For more information, see the full Data Centre Q1 2018 report.