Hyperscale datacentre market growth soared in 2020 on back of Amazon and Google buildouts

The number of hyperscale datacentres in operation across the globe continues to rise, with an additional 56 new sites coming online during the six months to 31 December 2020.

That is according to data accrued by Synergy Research Group about the state of the hyperscale datacentre market, which confirmed the number of facilities operated by providers in this space has more than doubled since 2015.

Synergy’s assessment of the market is based on its analysis of the datacentre footprint of 20 of the world’s biggest cloud and internet firms, spanning cloud software, infrastructure and platform services, social networking, e-commerce and gaming too.

The company confirmed that – as of the end of December 2020 – 597 hyperscale datacentres are now in use across the world, which is an increase from 541 back in July 2020.

More than half of these datacentres are operated by public cloud giants Microsoft, Amazon and Google, with the latter two companies responsible for the bulk of the new server farms that have come online during the last four quarters, confirmed Synergy. 

Furthermore, its data shows that more than 70% of these datacentres are located in facilities that are leased from datacentre operators (colocation) or that are owned by partners of the hyperscale cloud and internet giants.

The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is known to have accelerated demand for cloud and internet-based services across the world over the past 12 months, as stay-at-home orders have resulted in more people having to work remotely, home-school their children and rely on streaming services for entertainment.

In light of these trends it is perhaps unsurprising that Synergy is tracking a further 219 hyperscale datacentre developments that are at various stages of planning and construction, which are set to come online in due course.

“There were 111 new hyperscale data centers opened in the last eight quarters, with 52 of those coming onstream in 2020 despite Covid-19 causing a few logistical issues,” said John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy Research Group.

“That is testament to the ongoing robust growth in the digital services that are driving those investments – particularly cloud computing, SaaS, e-commerce, gaming and video services.”

“We did actually see a handful of older hyperscale data centers shut down in 2020, but those numbers pale besides the number of newly opened or planned sites,” he said.

The market watcher has also provided a geographical breakdown of where the bulk of the hyperscale datacentre buildout activity is occurring, with its data showing that almost 40% of the of the major cloud and internet datacentres are located in the US.

“The next most popular locations are China, Japan, Germany, the UK and Australia, which collectively account for another 29% of the total,” Synergy Research Group said, in an analyst note.

“Over the last four quarters new datacentres were opened in 17 different countries, with the US, South Korea, China, Canada, UAE, Indonesia, Italy and South Africa having the largest number of additions.”