Explosion of capex and new capital in 2021 puts data center sector on track for growth in 2022
Multiple types of companies are investing heavily in data center assets. Two years ago, the data center market was already vibrant, but COVID-19 gave this a boost as enterprises accelerated digital transformation efforts, and multiple sectors (enterprise, government, education…) moved many activities to the cloud. As a result, data center investment has boomed. This investment is coming from multiple sources: webscalers, carrier-neutral operators, telcos, and a broad range of asset management specialists aiming to benefit from growing DC demand. With this investment, the market is seeing consolidation and the emergence of new business models. Meanwhile, the technologies deployed in the data center are evolving rapidly. Vendors are creating new products and customizing old ones in order to cater to the data center. Even if you’re steeped in the data center world, it can be hard to keep up. This “Data Center Investment Tracker” provides an up-to-date synthesis of this investment and technology activity.
This is the second edition of the data center investment tracker, covering developments through April 2022. The scope of coverage has been expanded considerably since the first edition, and a new section addressing energy topics has been added. The report includes the following sections:
Footprint: a summary of the data center footprint, energy usage, and major projects underway of all key webscale and carrier-neutral network operators, and a few large telcos with data center holdings. In total, 52 companies are included, from 27 last quarter.
Capex: capital expenditures (Capex) recorded from 1Q11-4Q21 by the big spenders driving the data center market – webscale and carrier-neutral operators. In total, Capex information is included for 31 companies with data center holdings. Capex for these companies was $177.3 billion (B) in 2021, up 29% from 2020. A large portion of this Capex was dedicated to data center construction and operation.
Vendor contracts: a database of 281 contracts between data center operators and vendors, cutting across many different categories of technology, in particular: servers (and the chips that run them), switches, routers, storage, security, optical interconnect, software, and power/cooling. The database attempts to be comprehensive for January 2020 through early May 2022.
Asset management: mini-profiles of 40 (from 30 last quarter) asset management & real estate companies with active interests in data centers, summarizing their approach to data center investment, major holdings, and recent developments.
Mergers & acquisitions: a summary of 73 significant M&A transactions involving the data center market, focusing on 2020 to early May 2022. The database includes 15 deals announced in 2022, which account for a total deal value of $16.8B. The largest three deals in 2022 to date are the joint bid by DigitalBridge and IFM Ventures to take Switch private, for $11B; Digital Realty’s $3.5B acquisition of 55% of Teraco, a South Africa-based CNNO; and, Equinix’s $705M acquisition of 4 data centers from South American telco, Entel.
Energy: for most of the large data center operators, this tab addresses overall energy consumption, energy spending, the shift to renewables, and data center efficiency (i.e. PUE).
All information is current as of early May 2022, with one exception: Capex data is through the December 2021 reporting period (4Q21).
Table of Contents
- Abstract
- DC Footprint: Datacenter footprint of major operators
- DC Capex: Capex of major data center operators
- VC Summary: Data center operator contracts with technology vendors
- Vendor Contracts: Data center vendor contracts database
- AM: Asset management firms active in data centers
- MA: Data center mergers & acquisitions – summary
- MA Data: Data center M&A database
- Energy: Energy usage by major data center operators
- About
List of Figures
- Figure (dynamic): Data center footprint (for 52 companies)
- Figure: Annualized Capex by segment, CNNO & Webscale (US$M)
- Figure: Top 15 providers based on 4Q21 annualized Capex (US$M)
- Figure: 4Q21 annualized Capex ($M) and cumulative % WNO/CNNO total
- Figure: YoY changes in annualized Capex, 4Q21 vs. 4Q20
- Figure (dynamic): Asset management firm approach to DC investing, major holdings, and recent developments (for 40 companies)
- Figure: Total electricity consumption by major data center operator (terawatt-hours)
- Figure: Estimated electricity spending as % of revenues by major DC operator*
- Figure: Average power usage effectiveness (PUE) for owned* data centers
- Figure: Renewable energy* as % of total consumption by an operator
List of Tables
- Table: Summary of vendor contracts included
- Table: Major announcements between technology suppliers and data center operators/builders
- Table: Summary of M&A deals included
- Table: Significant M&A deals involving data center operators and assets
Companies Mentioned
- 365 Data Centers
- AARNet
- Aesler Group
- Africell
- Airtrunk
- Alibaba
- Alphabet (Google)
- Altaba
- Altibox Carrier
- Amazon
- Angola Cables
- Apple
- Aqua Comms & Telia
- ARC Solutions
- Asia Pacific Telecom
- AtlasEdge Data Centres (Liberty/DigitalBridge)
- AWS
- Azercell Telecom
- Baidu
- BCE
- Beyond.pl
- BitNAP Datacenter
- BroadBand Tower
- ByteDance
- C3ntro Telecom
- Capital Online
- China Media Group
- China Mobile
- China Telecom
- China Telecom Global
- China Telecom Guangdong
- China Telecommunication Tech Labs
- China Unicom
- ChinaCache
- ChinData
- CITIC Telecom
- CityFibre
- CNT
- Cogent
- Cognizant
- Colocation Australia
- Cologix
- Colt Data Centre Services
- Colt Technology Services
- Comcast Business
- CoreSite
- CRT Informatique
- CyrusOne
- Cyxtera
- DataBank (including Zayo/zcolo)
- DC BLOX
- DEWA (Moro Hub)
- Digital Realty
- DISH
- Djibouti Telecom
- DT Global Carrier
- DuPont Fabros
- eBay
- EdgeConnex
- Equinix
- Espanix
- everyWAN
- Evoque Data Centers
- FirstLight
- Flexential
- Fujitsu
- GDS
- GigeNET
- Global Switch
- GlobalNet
- Green Mountain
- Greenergy Data Centers
- Hanoi Telecom
- Hetzner Online
- HPE
- Huawei Cloud
- i3D.net
- IBM
- i-Data
- IKOULA
- Interxion
- IP Telecom
- Iron Mountain
- Iusacell
- Japan Network Access Point
- JD.com
- Jolera
- KDDI Telehouse
- Keppel DC REIT
- LG CNS
- Lightstorm Telecom Ventures
- Lumea
- M1
- Marcatel
- Mercantil do Brasil
- Meta (Facebook)
- Microsoft
- Munich Re
- National Security Agency
- National Supercomputing Center
- NAVER
- Neos Networks
- NEXTDC Limited
- NICT Japan
- Ningxia Cable TV
- Nipa Cloud
- NL-ix
- NorthC Datacenters
- Northwest Access Exchange
- NTT Communications
- NxtGen Data Centers
- Nxtra by Airtel
- Omantel
- Ooredoo Qatar
- OpenColo
- Oracle
- PAIX data centres
- PeaSoup
- PIT Chile
- PLDT
- Prime Data Centers
- QTS Realty
- Rakuten
- RETN
- Salumanus (SI)
- SAP
- Serverius
- Shinsegae I&C
- Sichuan Unicom
- SMC Corporation
- Southern Cross Cable Limited
- SpaceDC
- Sparkle
- SSE Enterprise Telecoms
- Stack Infrastructure
- StarHub
- stc
- Steel Authority of India
- Sunevision
- Swiss National Supercomputing Centre
- Switch
- team.blue Denmark
- Telefonica
- Telefónica del Perú
- Telstra
- Tencent
- Teraco
- Thésée DataCenter
- Three Gorges Group
- T-Mobile Polska
- Togocom
- Turkcell
- UK Crown Commercial Service
- Uninett
- US Department of Energy
- Vantage Data Centers
- Verizon
- VNET Group (21 Vianet)
- Vocus New Zealand
- Vodacom South Africa
- Vodafone Infrastructure Partners
- Vodafone New Zealand
- Vodafone Turkey
- WIN Technology
- Windstream
- XData Properties
- XDC+
- Yandex
- Zayo Group Holdings
- Zenlayer
- Zoom
