The re-emergence of the Data Centre space race, after the dot com bubble

The last six months have seen continued expansion of Data Centre space in Europe, with much of the growth coming from the established markets in the UK, France, the Netherlands and Germany. The degree of the increase can be seen from the effects of the Data Centre Price Tracker, where average carrier neutral space per rack has increased from 776 euro per month (July 2008) to 865 euro per month (January 2008), an average price increase of 11.5 per cent over the last six month period. 

The growth in pricing is now been reflected in new Data Centre space being developed, first by the Carrier Neutral Data Centre, and now by the Carrier Based telecoms provider. In Berlin, E-Shelter are developing – in stages – a 15,000 square metre facility and are planning a 7,500 space on their existing 60,000 square metre Frankfurt campus. The facility is aimed at large client who wish to outsource their entire IT centre to a carrier neutral site without having to develop their own Data Centre. Global Switch has also announced its first Data Centre build in Paris since 2001 with a new 8,000 square metre build out.
In the UK, Sentrum has developed a similar market niche with new Data Centre under way at Woking, and Digital Realty Trust with sites under development at Welwyn and outer London (at the Foxboro Business Park). COLT Telecom has also opened their 5th Data Centre outside the London M25 ring road. The attraction of new Data Centre development was underlined on March 22nd when Japanese carrier KDDI Corporation announced that it would be devoting $243 million USD to building new Data Centres in the UK, France and Singapore by 2010. This will be its first new development in Europe for more than 5 years.

For more information on the Data Centre Price Tracker.