The number of large data centers operated by hyperscale providers rose to 992 at the end of 2023, up from the 1,000 mark earlier this year, according to the latest industry data from Reno, Nevada-based Synergy Research Group. Ta.
According to Synergy data, the US still accounts for 51% of the world's capacity measured in MW for critical IT loads, with Europe and China each accounting for about a third of the remaining.
Our latest research analyzes the data center footprint of 19 of the world's leading cloud and internet services companies, including the largest operators in SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, search, social networking, e-commerce, and gaming. Based on. .
“Both the number of hyperscale data centers and their average size continue to grow at an impressive pace, but there are many complexities and nuances behind this trend,” said John Dinsdale, Principal Analyst at Synergy Research Group. There is.”
Not surprisingly, the companies with the most extensive hyperscale data center footprints are the major cloud providers, defined in the study as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
In addition to large data center footprints in the US domestic market, each of the three cloud giants has multiple data centers in diverse and widespread regions of the world.
Together, these three currently account for 60% of all hyperscale data center capacity, according to Synergy Research.
The new report says the big three are followed in the ranking by Meta/Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, Apple, TikTok owner ByteDance, and “other smaller hyperscale operators.”
(No word on whether Oracle is actually considered that small or not “hyperscale” in some sense.)
AI-powered pipeline and capacity
Synergy's projected growth numbers are primarily based on tracking the hyperscale operator's future data center pipeline.
Dinsdale continued, “Generally speaking, company-owned data centers are much larger than leased data centers, and a hyperscale company's home data center is much larger than its international facilities, but these There are many exceptions to this trend.
Meanwhile, Synergy Research notes that it will take just four years for the total capacity of all hyperscale data centers to double, as the number of facilities continues to grow rapidly and average capacity continues to increase. doing.
Synergy predicts that total hyperscale data center capacity will double again over the next four years.
The analyst emphasized that approximately 120 to 130 additional hyperscale data centers will come online each year.
“Capacity growth will increasingly be driven by even larger newly opened data centers, with generative AI technology being the main reason for that expansion.”
hyperscale hockey stick
Synergy Research said its known pipeline of future hyperscale data centers currently stands at 440 facilities in various stages of planning, development and equipment.
Dinsdale also said:
“We are also seeing a bifurcation in data center size. Core data centers are getting larger, but an increasing number of data centers are being deployed to bring infrastructure closer to customers. “But when you put it all together, all the major growth trend lines are trending upwards sharply.”
Synergy Research's conclusions align with what the latest data center industry news is telling us.
As we recently sampled the current spate of mega-blockbuster deals, Bloomberg's Matt Day reported last month that Amazon is investing $150 billion over the next 15 years in a “show of force” and “a show of extravagance.” I did some calculations in the middle of making the claim. 'The hyperscale giant is looking to maintain its cloud computing dominance over Microsoft and Google.
The report said AWS revenue growth slowed to an all-time low last year as enterprise customers cut costs and delayed modernization projects. Day added: “Now that spending is starting to pick up again, Amazon is keen to secure land and power for its power-hungry facilities.”
Day said Amazon could strengthen its leadership in the cloud services market, where it has about twice the market share of second-largest Microsoft, by ramping up spending on data centers necessary for the current and expected demand boom. He pointed out that he is trying to maintain the For AI applications and other digital services.
So Microsoft is never one to second-guess, and when it was leaked last week that it had added 500 MW of capacity to its data centers since July and wanted to add another 1 GW of power over the next six months, it made no bones about it. It wasn't a surprise. According to leaked information from the company, as first reported by Business Insider.
It's no secret that a key prerequisite for so-called hyperscalers these days is to be in persistent mega-expansion mode in their data centers to meet the demands of AI.