Demand for edge data centers will continue to grow, and the impact of Brexit is still a way off, according to Tanuja Randery, president of Schneider Electric in the UK and Ireland. 

“We haven’t seen much of an impact from Brexit,” she said in an interview at DCD Zettastructure in London. “In fact we’ve seen continued demand in the UK market. It’s the second largest data center market in the world, with about 500 data centers. We havent seen investments move away… yet.” 

If there were any problems, they could be offset by the vast expansion in demand for data at the edge of the network, she said: “More data is created at the edge than in central hyperscale data centers. The UK is a huge economy, it is still growing and generating huge amounts of data at the edge.” 

She did advise that the UK should be sure to sign up to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. The UK will have to support it, as it will still be part of the European Union when GDPR arrives, but it should continue to support it if and when it leaves Europe: ”Whether you are a UK company or a European company, we need free flow of data.”