NTT Group to grow global datacentre footprint by 20% over next 18 months

Carrier-neutral colocation giant NTT has committed to growing the size of its global datacentre footprint by a further 20% over the course of the next 18 months, as the pandemic continues to fuel demand for its services.

The company is one of the world’s biggest colocation providers, and already has datacentres across Europe, North America, Africa and Asia, having made a concerted effort over the past 12 months to bring new sites online and sources of network connectivity to all these locations.

Where it’s Europe, Middle East and African (EMEA) operations are concerned, the firm opened new datacentres in Amsterdam, Munich, Frankfurt and in the UK over the past year, with the latter on course to boost the amount of colocation capacity it can offer by more than 200%.

“Over the next two years, NTT will increase its available IT load in EMEA by over 40% as it builds 13 new datacentre buildings across nine markets in six countries to deliver an added 115MW of IT load across 50,000m2,” the company confirmed in a statement.

Some of these new builds will see the firm build out its datacentre footprint in cities where it has previously lacked a presence, including Madrid and Johannesburg, while also boosting its compute capacity in existing locations including Vienna, Zurich, London and Germany.

The company also has plans in place to bring online new capacity across the Asia-Pacific region, and is in the midst of a sizeable build out of its datacentre operations within India too, which will bring the total number of hyperscale campuses it operates in the country to five over the next 18 months.

As well as expanding its global datacentre footprint, the firm is also in the midst of building a large capacity submarine cable – dubbed MIST – to connect Singapore, Malaysia and India to its network, which is due for completion in mid-2023.

Masaaki Moribayashi, president and board director for NTT, cited the continuing fall-out from the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic as a reason behind its expansion plans.

“The pandemic has dramatically changed our way of life. People’s quality of life now fundamentally depends on this infrastructure,” said Moribayashi. “In the next 18 months, NTT plans to increase data center operations by 20% to a total of over 600,000m2 (approx. 6.5M ft2) of floorspace in over 20 countries and regions.

“NTT has already started construction to add 300MW of IT load to its portfolio. With the completion of new datacentres, expanded campuses and high capacity networks such as the MIST submarine cable, we are building a connected future that will benefit NTT's clients around the world.”