Opening the second Singapore Data Center Week (SDCW), experts said that Singapore and the surrounding region will be crucial in the development of data centers worldwide.

Around 600 million people live in South East Asia - that’s double the population of the US. Due to a thriving demand for data center space, the region is predicted to have an $8 billion data center market by 2020. It is moving towards a world of zettabytes, driven by an explosion in mobile devices, said DCD chief executive George Rockett, arguing that this evolution will require great ingenuity.

Singapore itself clearly sees data centers as important, supporting the Data Center Week during a few days between the country’s General Election and a high profile sporting event - the Forumula One race which takes place here this coming weekend.

ricky cooper digital realty
Ricky Cooper, VP of APAC and EMEA, Digital Realty – Peter judge

Invention needed

The speedy growth of data center market could result in a power crisis, warned Rockett. By 2030, the demand for data will be so huge that supporting it all with today’s technology would require literally the world’s entire electricity output, according to calculations from Roger Strukhoff of the Tau Institute.

“Of course, technology will develop,” said Rockett. The methods to deal with the data explosion are already being worked on, and many of them will emerge and will be deployed quickly in SE Asia, where the demands, and the environmental issues, can be more pressing than elsewhere.

The Asian region is also subject to a fragmented regulatory environment, with its patchwork of small and diverse nations, noted Shiraz Qureshi, director of business development for APAC at Nuage Networks, during the opening panel discussion.  

The DCD Converged SE Asia event, which takes place on two days of Singapore Data Center Week, will explore these trends. It will also include DCD’s new conference track, Stacking IT, which examines the potential of open source and standards-based technologies to transform data centers.

The week also includes DatacenterDynamics’ Asia Pacific Awards which recognize achievements by the data center owners and operators in the region. And many of the delegates will round the week out with a visit to the F1 race track.

“Industries in our sector are transforming the lives of everyone,” said Ricky Cooper (above), vice president of EMEA and APAC at Digital Realty, during the keynote. Companies need to develop their own right strategy, he said, as they choose between their own data centers and the cloud.